Pinesong
by A Perplexing Puzzle
Summary: Revali might have left this world with no regrets, had Link not been so persistent. He can't bring himself to regret it, though. Revalink, Post-Calamity. Effects of trauma, anxiety, some depictions of injuries.
1. Chapter 1

This story started out as a oneshot (story of my life), but will probably end up about three or four chapters. Updates will be every Friday until it's completed. My other stories are not abandoned or forgotten, I _promise_.

* * *

For all the hundreds of sunrises Revali had seen and admired in his too-short lifetime, it took one hundred years trapped in Vah Medoh's darkened depths to realize that he had not once given the daily event the solemn regard it deserved. Each ray of light bursting over the far distant Death Mountain pierced his weary soul like a Rito chorus, filling him with a relief so strong, he could not stop the reluctant tears that fell each morning at the sight of it. There was something in the sunrise that spoke to a newly remembered hope budding within him, a hope he had long thought withered and gone, and he clung to that hope for Hyrule even if he had little left for himself.

Some nights, when the moon was red in the sky and the darkness overwhelmed him, that fervent hope was all that kept him going.

Still, fruition of that hope, if it ever came, was a long time off. Medoh's sights were set, its aim on Calamity Ganon unerring, but it had been only the first Divine Beast to break free of Ganon's control. Link still had three others left to rescue, which meant that storming the castle for now was a far distant dream, still weeks or even months away. Until then, Revali had little to do but look out across the vast expanse of Hyrule, watching the Rito that circled the towering rock he perched on and talking to Medoh whenever his isolation became… a bit much.

His only brief glimpses into the world beyond came whenever Link used his Gale, and Revali's spirit was called to his side to lift him through the air, and _that_ was a blessing with a barb that stung each time he thought about it. That Link could fly free while Revali was tethered to Medoh's side, his powerful wings clipped until he'd completed his promised duty, was nearly unbearable… but he reminded himself bitterly that he had earned this fate with his failure. Link's success was his only hope for averting Ganon's endless night, and so he aided where he could, carrying Link up icy cliffs when he called and trying not to sulk. For reasons unknown to Revali, the Hylian knight had been traveling through the frigid Hebra Mountains for days since freeing Vah Medoh. In the short glances he caught carrying Link from peak to peak, his frost-covered rival looked tired, determined, and cold.

It was a surprise, then, when Revali's solitude was shattered by liquid blue light forming at the base of Vah Medoh, swirling to coalesce into the very same knight he had seen at the furthest reaches of the Hebra tundra only hours before. Narrowing his eyes curiously, Revali watched as Link craned his neck to stare up at the Divine Beast, his braided hair swinging in the icy wind that must have felt almost balmy after the depths of cold he'd been traversing, and seated himself beside Medoh's stone talons without a word. It still felt odd to see him in anything other than Champion's blue, much less clothing approaching Rito garb, but odder still was seeing him here at all, with Medoh already freed. Long minutes passed like that, with Link staring off towards the darkened castle in the distance and blowing occasionally into his fingers, and finally Revali's curiosity could stand this no longer.

"You again?" he called out, sharp voice echoing down to the Hylian below, and was satisfied by the way Link _jumped_ , staring around himself with unguarded surprise that did not at all match the blank-faced knight of Revali's memories. "I would never have guessed you missed me so much."

Link opened his mouth but said nothing, and Revali rolled his eyes, ready to dismiss his presence. If he felt like talking to someone who wouldn't talk back, Medoh's company was infinitely preferable.

"Can you hear me?" Link shouted suddenly, and this time it was Revali's turn to nearly fall over in shock, though thankfully Link could not see it.

"Surprisingly, yes," he managed in a feeble voice, clearing his throat. In all the time they had known each other, Revali had never heard the Hylian champion speak. He had started to wonder if he could, despite the rumors that said otherwise. "Am I finally to be graced with your thoughts? It certainly took you long enough."

"So I've heard," Link muttered, whatever _that_ was supposed to mean. "Are you really… I mean… can you come down?"

"I prefer the view from up here," Revali said coolly, and Link's face fell.

"Oh," he mumbled, clearly disappointed, and Revali's eyebrows rose. Just what sort of reception had he expected? "Am I… would you rather I left? I really didn't expect to find you here. I kind of thought you'd…" His cheeks, already pink with the cold, reddened further, and he gestured vaguely. "...Moved on."

Revali snorted with dry amusement.

"Not quite yet, I'm afraid." He supposed there was no reason to send Link on his way just yet, not with entertainment atop Vah Medoh so difficult to come by. "Strange of you to come here, if that was your impression. Wouldn't your time be better spent freeing the others?" Revali still couldn't fathom why Link had decided to free him first. He would have bet his bow on Mipha.

"I will," Link said defensively. "It's… I just…" He sighed, his expression turned wistful. "I just wanted to feel close to you for a moment… before I left."

And _that_ was so clearly the raw and simple truth that Revali instinctively scoffed.

"A touching sentiment, Hylian, but we were never all that close," he muttered, ruffling his feathers. "Has a hundred years degraded your memory so far, or—"

"It has," Link said, and Revali froze, his beak flapping wordlessly. Link couldn't really mean… but his face was like stone. "If I offended you a hundred years ago, then I'm sorry. I don't remember… any of it. I barely remember you, or the others, or even Zelda, really. I'm sorry," he added again uselessly as Revali stayed silent, his eyes narrowed to green slits. No memories. Revali's prowess in the skies, their ongoing rivalry… Link remembered none of it. For all Revali knew, Link thought of him as only a second-rate warrior—some sort of _damsel in distress_ , even, he realized with growing dismay. Link had defeated the creature that killed him, after all, and saved him from that darkness. Why should he possibly think differently?

"Revali—"

Link gasped, stumbling back as Revali burst into being in front of him in a flash of green flames. His gaze darted desperately across Revali as if taking him all in, but the Rito paid him no heed, leaning forward to glare into his eyes. That this inept boy could still _live_ while Revali's only hope was for death and revenge… it wasn't fair.

"This is all you need to remember about us," he hissed. "I was the pride of the Rito, a master of the wind and skies, and an experienced Rito warrior. _You_ were an unproven _amateur_ placed over me by virtue of the weapon you carried." Too late, Revali noticed that the darkness-sealing sword was missing, replaced by a Lizalfos blade of all things, and wondered where it had gone. He had never known Link to be without it. "You only stand here now instead of me because you were given a second chance that you didn't deserve, and if there is anything more than that between us, you certainly never told me otherwise."

Link said nothing for so long that Revali thought his words had pushed him into silence once more, but then his back straightened angrily, his wooden expression far more reminiscent of the one Revali remembered.

"I guess I probably didn't," he said at last, the blue of his eyes a surprisingly bitter storm. "Though I thought I remembered… If that's how it is, I won't disturb you with my presence anymore. Just… tell me who I should save next. I don't remember—" He cut off tiredly, as if finishing that sentence might exhaust him.

Revali glared for a moment longer, then relented.

"Mipha," he said, because she was who Link would have freed first. Daruk and Urbosa were both strong enough to withstand their prisons a bit longer, and though Mipha was far from weak… "Free Vah Ruta, and Mipha will provide you with all the sympathy I cannot." Irritated, Revali turned away. "I don't know why you came here first to begin with. The Tabantha region is beautiful, but it's on the way to nowhere."

"I don't know," Link muttered, though to Revali's surprise it had the sound of a lie about it. "Mipha. Vah Ruta. The Zora. Okay. Thanks… Revali."

Withdrawing a familiar tablet from his belt, Link tapped expertly at its screen and was gone as quickly as he had appeared, his form dissolving into blue light that vanished into the air. Yet another undeserved advantage on Link's end. Not long after, Revali felt a familiar tug, and shifted through space to raise Link up into the fingerlike mountains surrounding what must have been Kakariko Village, judging by the Sheikah-styled architecture. Link captured his eye briefly as they ascended, and Revali was grateful to slip back towards his perch over Medoh once more, far from that solemn blue gaze.

"Don't give me that look," he muttered to Medoh, though in truth he couldn't see Medoh's face. It was more a feeling of disapproval nudging at Revali's mind that he chose to pay no heed to. The boy had come to him first for a reason, whatever he claimed—a memory, perhaps? Something else?

Curiosity dug at Revali, but he stifled it. The fewer connections he formed with this new world, the less he would regret it when he left—and he _would_ leave soon enough, assuming Link achieved the impossible.

A generous assumption, but one could always hope.

* * *

Fortunately—or not? Revali couldn't decide—it seemed for a long while that he had managed to drive Link away. That was not to say that Link didn't call on his aid, of course. Revali's Gale carried him over fields and swamps, up jungle cliffs and ancient towers, until the increasingly annoyed Rito was finally certain of two things: first, that Link had no respect for the power he had been given (mountains and towers were one thing, but _surely_ he could have scaled that stable unaided), and second, that the _hero_ they all relied on had become hopelessly sidetracked. Revali was admittedly not well-traveled in life, having had little time for such things while devoting each spare moment to improving his skills with a bow, but he knew enough to know that this densely forested jungle was nowhere near Zora's Domain, or Death Mountain or Gerudo Town, or anywhere Link had any reason to be. The old Hylian Champion had certainly had his flaws—so, _so_ many flaws—but he would have been driven beyond reason to help a friend in need. Was the plight of the other Champions really so incidental to this newly forgetful Link?

The breaking point came when Revali appeared at Link's side to find what looked like ten shock arrows aimed in his direction, and could not repress a squawk. Link's concentration broke as he spared him a sharp, surprised glance, but Revali was already gone, his spirit returned to the top of Vah Medoh to pace across it furiously. That Link would face dangers in his mission to defeat Ganon, Revali already knew, but as far as he could tell that quest had been frustratingly sidelined. What sort of foolishness was he risking his life over now? Didn't he realize how many people depended on his success?

To Revali's surprise, Link appeared not one hour later, pocketing his slate as he glared at the top of Vah Medoh.

"Have you been watching me all this time?" he demanded, and Revali did not bother to hold back a snicker at the very… _odd_ hat the Hylian wore. Glowering at Revali the way he was, Link looked like an angry fish.

"Interesting choice in headgear," he said, and Link flushed, yanking the thing off his head. To Revali's surprise, Link still wore his Rito braids beneath it, though the ends were frizzled with static like the bristling tail of a wolf. Revali felt the oddest impulse to smooth them down, and was grateful for once that his current form made such a thing impossible. "I have not been _spying_ on you, if that's what you're implying. You may treat my power like a toy, but it is a part of my spirit, and it is my spirit that comes to your aid each time you call upon it. How did you think it worked?"

"...Oh." The anger had already faded from Link's face, making Revali wonder why it had burned so suddenly in the first place. Shivering as if he'd just noticed the cold, he dug through his pouch to withdraw a winged ruby earpiece, his mouth twisted in a stubborn knot as he set it in place. "You still could have mentioned—"

"Does it make you uncomfortable to know that somebody bears witness to your _dallying_?" Revali interrupted him shrewdly, and Link stiffened. "I know I would not want anyone to know if I had neglected my duties so thoroughly. Do your fellow Champions mean so little to you now?"

"I'm not—" Link started to snap, then stopped, breathing deeply. "I'm going to Zora's Domain next, I promise. I'm just… training. Looking for shrines, trying to remember… I can't defeat Ganon the way I am. Windblight alone almost killed me."

That was true enough. For one heart-stopping moment during the windswept chaos of Windblight's attack, Revali had thought the battle lost, before a fluttering pink fairy brought Link gasping back to life. Small comfort to know that Link would have otherwise fallen before the oozing beast just as Revali had, not when there was a much greater foe in his future. Still…

"Do you know what it is like to be trapped within one of these Divine Beasts?" he asked, and Link frowned warily, shaking his head.

"How could I?"

"It is not sleep, if that's what you were envisioning," Revali said, ignoring the bite to Link's tone. "There is nothing restful about it. It is blindness, and it is fear, knowing that the princess's power holds back Ganon for now, but not knowing what destruction your own Divine Beast has wrought. For a hundred years, I thought that Rito Village was no more, wiped from the land by Medoh itself. If the others do not think the same of their own homes, I would be surprised." Link's breathing almost ceased at that, his round eyes widening with horror, but Revali continued ruthlessly, pushing aside his own painful reaction as he dredged those memories up. "Day after day, year after year, there is only the endless growling of Malice for company as the Divine Beast you once called partner moves beneath its alien touch, and you know that slumbering somewhere in its depths is the monster that killed you so many years ago, just waiting to attack whoever might attempt to rescue you… assuming anyone is even capable of such a thing. Far more likely that your spirit will rot within its depths for eternity, trapped within the corrupted confines of your own Divine Beast." If possible, Revali's voice grew harder. "So tell me, Link, how much longer would you put Daruk and Urbosa through that? What about Mipha? It was obvious to anyone watching what she felt for you."

Link jerked in surprise, mouthing her name.

"Wait, you're saying she…" His face twisted regretfully. "I don't… remember that."

"Must you, in order to save her?" Revali demanded. "Is it required for you to love someone before you will help them? I don't even like you, yet I lent you my aid." Link's shoulders slumped forward bonelessly, and Revali knew he had made his point. He could not regret it, either, not when he was the only one left to keep Link in line… but he did wish that Link's forlorn expression didn't tug so strangely at his heart. Sympathy, that's all it was. Pity for someone so clearly out of their depth.

Revali's gaze strayed past Link to the sloped wooden buildings clustering the rock below, so close to Medoh's perch, yet to Revali, as distant as the sun.

"Since you're here," he said abruptly, "tell me… how _is_ Rito Village faring? Everyone seems to be doing well, as far as I can tell."

Link said nothing, staring dejectedly at the stone beneath his feet, and Revali sighed. None of the Rito circling the air could fly far enough up to see his spirit atop Vah Medoh—the updrafts surrounding Rito Village only rose so far, and from what he could see, no warrior among them had yet managed to replicate his special feat—but he thought he preferred it that way. These Rito were not the same ones he'd known in life. Even if one of them managed to spot him and climb their way up here, what would he say?

"I can't fathom that it's been a hundred years," he mused, watching them fly wistfully. "There's no one left who would even know me." Not that he had formed many close friendships in life—there were sacrifices that came with the life he had chosen. Still…

"I'll be right back." Revali glanced at Link in surprise. Something had flickered to life in his eyes now, and he looked… nervous?… but offered no further explanation.

"I'll just wait here then, shall I?" he said sarcastically as Link jumped off the cliff's edge. His paraglider unfolded above him soon after, the symbol of the Rito emblazoned on its canvas growing smaller as he fell, and Revali tried sullenly not to feel jealous as he lost sight of it among the slanted tops of Rito Village. He had already known that Link must have walked the paths of his home more recently than he, but that didn't mean he had to rub it in.

True to his word, though, Link returned only an hour later, shouting up at Revali almost before the blue light had finished forming him.

"Can you come down?" he called, more than half a question after Revali's earlier refusal. This time Revali obliged, appearing beside Link in a rush of green flames.

"What is it?" he asked, eying the slate clutched in Link's hands with reluctant curiosity. Link had yet to put it away, gripping it in front of him like a shield. "Just because I have ample spare time these days does not mean I enjoy it being wasted."

"I…" Staring up at his face, Link seemed for a moment to have lost his nerve, though he gathered it up soon enough. "Um, I know this is no replacement for—for what you must really want, but I still thought—it's better than nothing, right? So—I mean, if you'd like to—"

Revali raised an eyebrow at the disjointed explanation, and Link took a deep breath.

"Look?" he asked simply, holding the Sheikah Slate out so Revali could see the screen. Rolling his eyes, Revali looked. And froze.

He remembered the strange device's camera function from so many years ago, along with the unfortunate image it had captured then, but these were pictures Link had taken himself, all over the past hour if the lighting was any indication. All of Rito Village.

Revali didn't take the slate from Link's hands, worried that it might fall straight through. Instead, Link flipped slowly through the images one by one, pausing whenever Revali lifted a finger. One hundred years had left their mark on the village, of course. Some platforms were more worn than he remembered, while other dwellings had been rebuilt entirely, and all of the Rito faces were unfamiliar… but it was his home and his people, not just surviving but thriving after the Calamity.

"This place…" Link paused on an image of the village's main landing, where a violet hued Rito woman looked out over the edge. "They call it Revali's Landing now, in memory of the warrior who gave his life all those years ago. Your name is mentioned constantly, especially among the warriors. They all look up to the feats that Master Revali accomplished."

 _Master Revali._ Revali opened his mouth to respond, and found that he couldn't speak. It seemed the title that he had not had time to earn in life had been awarded him after death. The feathers of his chest puffed out a bit no matter how he tried to contain them, and he hoped Link didn't notice.

"This is Harth—he makes the bows, I think—and the Elder… and…" Link stopped, smiling fondly as he held the slate closer, and Revali realized with a pang that he was looking at his old Flight Range. A white-plumed Rito sat by the fire, his shadowed eyes watching Link in confusion as a smaller, white Rito chick peered from behind him.

"This is Teba," Link explained. "He was the one who drew Medoh's fire so I could disable the cannons and board it, though I think he was ready to take it on himself when I got here. He talks about following in your footsteps all the time, and his greatest hope is that Tulin becomes a great warrior like you." That must have been the fledgling, because Link laughed under his breath, adding, "To his wife's dismay, I think. She thinks he's still too young for all that."

Staring at the image of that tiny little Rito, something in Revali went cold.

"The wife is the wiser of the two," he muttered, and Link's laughter cut short, the altered mood between them palpable.

"Was this a bad idea?" he asked quietly after a moment, withdrawing the Sheikah Slate. "I didn't mean to upset you."

"No, it's…" Revali sighed, already regretting his words. "You were fine. You gave me something precious today, something I never expected to receive. Thank you."

Link's eyebrows shot up past his bangs, as if he hadn't expected that. To be honest, Revali hadn't really meant to say it, but the words had slipped out of him. All those pictures must have put him in a sentimental mood.

"Do you… regret it?" Link asked cautiously, as if he saw something fragile in Revali. Was there? "All the work that you put in to achieve…" He spread his hands wide as if to encompass Revali's life within.

"If you're asking me if I regret the entirety of my life's work, then the answer is no," Revali said dryly. "It was not a bad life that I chose, but it required a dedication that not just anyone is capable of. Teba has a wife and a child to care for, and Tulin… he has a family. I do not think either will be matching my achievements anytime soon."

Too late, Revali realized he'd left an opening as wide as the heart-shaped hole in the pillar they perched on for Link to ask about his own past, about the sullen Rito chick who had decided early on that if others did not like him for who he was, they would at least respect him for what he could do. He tensed, fully expecting Link to ask—the way his mouth kept running without his consent, Revali might have even answered him—but to his eternal relief, Link let it go.

"Do you really think that's the only way to achieve anything?" he asked instead, and rather than sounding skeptical as the words implied, his expression was serious. "By pushing off all personal… attachments?"

"If it isn't, then I guess I do have regrets," Revali said with a dry laugh. "I could never find another way." Eying Link sideways, he added, "What about you, Link? What do you regret?"

Link's eyes strayed past him to the castle, where swirling dark clouds of Malice gathered.

"Everything," he said softly, and Revali nodded in understanding.

A sort of melancholy silence fell between them, almost pleasant to Revali even in its sadness. It felt better than such silence experienced alone, at least. Revali stared at the back of Link's head and wondered absently if he even owned a comb.

"I'll leave for Zora's Domain tomorrow," Link promised suddenly, as if the weight of his own thoughts had grown too much for him. "Maybe sooner."

"A wise decision," Revali said dryly. Link swelled a bit at the faint praise, and he could not resist pricking him back down. "Much wiser than I've come to expect from you, at least." He tilted his head. "Where were you when you last called on me, anyway? I did not recognize it."

"The Spring of Courage," Link said, laughing softly as if at a private joke while shrugging his arm subconsciously, and Revali realized with a start that one of those shock arrows he'd seen must have nicked him after all, the sleeve of his shirt torn where it had brushed past to reveal a small patch of blackened, blistering skin. It looked painful, but Link gave it no heed, as if such an injury was beneath his notice. "Aptly named, I guess, though I can't think those monsters were always camped there. A Rito bard told me that the journey would be worth my time, but I still think he could have warned me. Maybe he didn't know."

"Really?" Revali said, eyebrows raised. A male Rito bard was almost as much a rarity as a Rito who had traveled so far. "And was he right?"

Link's expression twisted to something he couldn't decipher. Hylians had such strange faces.

"Maybe not in the way he expected," he murmured, "though I still wish I'd gone prepared." Tapping away at the Sheikah Slate again, Link paused. "I, um, hope you didn't mind me bothering you. See you… see you soon, I guess."

His mouth had a funny quirk to it as he dissolved, and Revali was unsurprised when moments later he was called to Link's side, lifting him over a river towards a glowing blue bridge that looked decidedly Zora in design.

"Heal your arm," he hissed as he circled him, that blackened skin—or Link's apathy towards it—making him bristle uncomfortably, and the ghost of a smirk touched Link's lips.

"Didn't think you c—"

Revali knew what Link meant to say though he was cut off before he could say it, and to his utter chagrin he could not think up a proper retort. He _didn't_ care. Link was obviously correct in that assumption… wasn't he?

* * *

Revali had to give the Hylian Champion credit for one thing, at least—once he'd made up his mind to do something, he pursued it like an arrow. The next time Link used Revali's Gale, he was in the aquamarine halls of Zora's Domain itself.

"See?" Link said as Revali brushed past him, and the Rito's brief satisfaction turned to outrage as he realized that Link had brought him there for no other reason than to demonstrate this fact, grinning broadly as he floated pointlessly through the sky.

"You can't just—" Revali seethed as he was torn away before he could finish the sentence, growling his frustration to the heavens above Vah Medoh. Link was clearly determined to drag the power that was Revali's legacy through new depths of indignity… though once he'd had a moment to calm down, he admitted reluctantly that it was good to know what was happening in the world outside of Rito Village. Those brief visits were the only windows he had into Link's progress, and even if he only escaped the top of Vah Medoh once or twice a day, it was still a break from the gentle monotony that now defined his existence.

...Which was the _only_ reason why, five days later when Link hadn't called on him at all, Revali was ready to chew rocks like a Goron.

Pacing until he should have worn a path through the ancient stone beneath him, Revali jumped from thought to furious thought with little care for how they contradicted each other.

"He's with the Zora now," he told Medoh firmly. "Probably swimming around like a fish." He'd never been to Zora's Domain, but the place was surrounded with water. What good would flying do him there?

How could he go for so long without contact, when he'd made such a habit of it before? Was he trying to kill Revali again?

Finally, as the sun set on the fifth day, a familiar pull at his chest brought him eagerly across the vast distance to its origin, though what he found on the other end cut him unexpectedly to the core. He may have only ever entered Vah Medoh, but he knew a corrupted Divine Beast when he saw one, and Revali shuddered as he carried Link up and fled to his familiar perch, remembering too well that sticky suffocation. The low rumble of Malice stayed with him long after it should have left, and he knelt to stroke Medoh's head in reassurance, though which if them he was attempting to comfort Revali didn't dare guess. Medoh was his now. _His_. Ganon would never… not again. And Link would free Ruta just as he had Medoh. It was within the realm of possibility, at least.

Still, he kept his gaze fixed on Hyrule Castle as the sun set and the night sky grew darker, until hours later a red beam of light split that sky, bursting from Ruta at the other edge of the continent to meet Medoh's in preparation for their eventual assault. Revali let out a slow, relieved breath. Link had managed to free another one, it seemed. Incredible. Perhaps his luck would hold out for long enough after all.

Revali offered no congratulations when Link called on his Gale not long after, though he did smile grimly as he realized where they were: the outside of Vah Ruta, finally returned to Mipha's control. Link had wasted no time in touching base with the Zora Champion now that he knew it could be done. No doubt Link would find Mipha to be far more pleasant company, which meant his visits with Revali were almost certainly at an end.

The thought left a surprisingly bitter taste in his mouth, and he disappeared in a huff, missing the sidelong glance Link sent his way. Really, it was for the best. He had Medoh for company, and detested the Hylian's presence anyway. His brief incursions into Link's life through the power of flight he'd lent him were more than enough to stave off boredom, and—

"I did it."

Revali nearly screeched in surprise as he whirled around, furious at being caught off guard. There Link stood at the base of Vah Medoh, grinning foolishly up at him, and Revali responded without thinking.

"Are you looking for applause?" he retorted, his ire increasing when Link's stupid smile did not diminish in the slightest. "A pat on the head, perhaps? Do something truly worthy of praise and then maybe we'll see."

"Oh really?" Link challenged, tilting his head, and Revali noticed that despite the clearly Zora armor Link now wore, those Rito braids remained the same, his ruby earpiece tucked beneath them. "What would I have to do, then? What does the _mighty_ Rito legend consider praiseworthy?"

Revali stared. Link was _teasing_ him.

"Do you think we're playing a game?" he growled. "For five days you failed to call on me, after pestering me almost nonstop! Do you understand what it's like to be stuck up here, not knowing anything about what's happening to you? For five days?"

Finally, Link's smile flickered, and faded.

"I didn't think you'd be counting them," he said, and something in his tone made Revali bristle. Was everything Link said and did calculated to infuriate him?

"I wasn't," Revali said, unable to decide whether it bothered him more or not when Link failed to point out his obvious lie. Instead, the Hylian knight stared up at him, braided hair swaying in breeze, his breath puffing out in tiny clouds before him.

"Can you come dow—"

Revali materialized before him in a gust of wind before he could even finish the question, folding his wings in irritation. It was more satisfying to glare where he could be seen, anyway.

"Why are you here, Link?" he asked stiffly, staring past him to the brightening horizon over Death Mountain. The sun would be rising soon, which meant he needed Link gone. "Shouldn't you still be catching up with Mipha, or tying up loose ends?" Or sleeping, he supposed, though he hadn't done such a thing himself in a long, long time.

Link's hand inched up to twist his braids in what Revali was surprised to realize was a nervous gesture, and he licked his lips before suddenly erupting with speech.

"I… I must have stared at Mipha's statue for hours, trying to remember anything else about her. I wandered around Zora's Domain so many times hoping to trigger a memory that Prince Sidon tried to give me a map." Link laughed, his voice strangely high. "I say 'tried.' He really did give me a map, even after I showed him that I already had one. I think he believes I have no navigational skills after how many times I got turned around trying to follow the path up to… that doesn't matter." Wincing, Link shook his head, gesturing towards his chest. "Mipha made me this armor. As an engagement present, the way Hylians might give each other a ring, I think. And I have no idea whether I would have accepted it." The line of his mouth grew steadily grimmer. "The Zora there remember me, and the ones who don't hate me make it sound like I spent half my childhood playing with them, but I don't remember any of them. I don't…" His gaze turned on Revali, pleading. "I don't remember loving… Mipha."

"I cannot imagine why you are telling me this," Revali said uncomfortably, mildly alarmed by the sheer volume of words Link had managed to say at once. "Don't you have friends you can talk to?"

Link laughed, rubbing the heels of his hands across his eyes.

"You think I've had time to make friends? You are the closest thing I have to a friend, and that..." Link's hands lowered, and he looked at Revali grimly. "I think I'm almost as happy about that as you are."

"Hmm." Something about that comment pricked at him, though he knew he had no right. He would swear up and down that he disliked the Hylian knight, which meant he could not reasonably be upset that Link would feel the same, but still… "I don't know whether you returned Mipha's feelings or not, though the way you speak makes it sound as if there was someone else. Who was it? The princess, I suppose?" Tragic, if so. Zelda had clearly despised him, but perhaps Link was just enough of a masochist to love her anyway.

Link stared at him for a long moment before his blue eyes dulled, a shadow falling over his face. If Link had been wearing his Champion's tunic with his hair pulled back as he'd once worn it, he would have looked the image of his former self.

"It doesn't matter, does it?" he said dully. "They died a hundred years ago, and I'm certain that they didn't feel the same. The smart thing would be to forget about it, right?"

"If it means that you stop coming to me for relationship advice, then yes," Revali snapped, exasperated suddenly for reasons he could not express. "Perhaps you should free Urbosa next if you need a shoulder to cry on and Mipha's won't do." More likely the Gerudo would meet his tears with tough love, but that might be exactly what Link needed. Revali himself could only offer the "tough" part of that equation.

"Urbosa," Link repeated wearily, nodding. "Vah Naboris. The Gerudo. Got it."

"...Yes." There was something in his recitation that made the fine feathers on Revali's neck rise. Link really did not remember them. The Champions were nothing more than names on a list to him now, little boxes waiting to be filled with checkmarks as he freed them one by one. "Travel south of Rito Village and eventually—"

"I can find it," Link interrupted, rolling his eyes. "I do know how to read a map."

"So you've mentioned." There could be no possible reason for Link to linger now, but still he did not leave, twirling at his braids even more anxiously. Again, Revali resisted the urge to smooth them out, stronger now that Link stood within wing's reach. All of his worrying had started to unravel them… but Revali had no guarantee that his feathers wouldn't slip right through if he tried. Could a spirit interact with the living like that?

"I told Mipha," Link said, and Revali nearly choked.

"That you don't love her?" That was one way to do things, he supposed, though the timing left something to be desired… but Link was furiously shaking his head.

"No! No, that I don't… remember her."

"Oh." Then, more grimly, " _Oh_. How did she take it?"

Link shrugged, kicking at Medoh's talon.

"Outwardly? Better than you did, but I still think it hit her harder."

"I didn't…" Looking back, Revali supposed he hadn't taken the news very well, at that. "I'm certain she doesn't hold it against you," he said instead. "You are safe, and she is free. No doubt she is overjoyed for so much, after all she's been through."

Link stared up at him, his round face softly illuminated as the horizon brightened further.

"Thank you."

"Hmph." Revali growled in disgust, Link's sincerity rubbing his feathers the wrong way. He was not accustomed to playing the role of comforter, especially for somebody he despised, but he had to get Link off his doorstep somehow… so to speak.

"Revali," Link said abruptly, his hands falling from his tangled hair into fists. "I—I wanted to tell you—"

Behind him, Revali saw the first rays of the sun shining over Death Mountain. Time was up.

"Go," he said sharply, and Link stopped, staring up at him bewildered.

"But…"

"Go!" he repeated, scowling. "Leave, now! Come back later if you must, but I need you gone! Please," he added, voice softening inexplicably, and Link's eyes softened in turn.

Not wasting time with the Sheikah Slate, Link left, leaping from the edge and catching himself on his paraglider to float gently towards the twinkling village below. Revali watched him meld into the darkness, then turned his attention back to the sun, the first tears already gathering in his eyes. Sunrise. Hope. He wondered if Mipha was as struck by the event as he was, if Urbosa and Daruk would be once they were free. Either way, no one could be allowed to see him like this, the mighty Rito warrior reduced to tears by the rising sun. Link would not have judged him for it, he was certain. Those perceptive blue eyes would have looked at Revali with _understanding,_ and that was the worst possibility he could imagine.

Revali sighed, shaking his head so his braids rustled behind him as the tears finally fell, twinkling into nothing before they could hit the ground. Like it or not, the Hylian Champion was the one person who could save this world from the brink of darkness, and the only bright point of anticipation in his otherwise unvarying days. Link, his final, flimsy little hope for release from this world.

"The goddess must not like me very much," he told Medoh, who had no response.

The twin beams of red splitting the sky faded in the growing light of day, though they did not vanish completely. Two Divine Beasts down, two to go. Revali stared at the risen sun, and saw Link's face.


	2. Chapter 2

I guess I'm posting this a day early but I didn't think anyone would mind? Although it's definitely Friday in Japan right now so actually I'm right on schedule!

* * *

Time dragged on, day becoming night becoming day as the quiet routines of Rito Village circled around in unending repetition. Every morning, the little Rito chicks lined up one by one to make the short flight over to Warbler's Nest, where brief echoes of melody floated up even to the top of Vah Medoh, and every afternoon they lined up one by one for the short flight home. Rito warriors walked back and forth along the bridges, vigilant as always in defense of their home, and others wheeled through the skies in a pattern distinguishable only to one who had flown that same route before. So little had changed in a hundred years, Revali could almost have believed the Calamity nothing more than a bad dream had it not torn him forever from that tiny world below and then stuck him there to watch.

On the other side of the world, Link's progress was slow. Landscapes of glowing blue and coral persisted for a while, turning gradually to a more autumnal land of cliffs and lakes and multicolored trees, and there he remained for days—in Revali's opinion, stalling. Link's shifting, defiant eyes each time they talked said he knew what Revali thought and fully expected a repeat of his scathing lecture from before, and so this time, Revali took his pleasure in withholding it, conveying his disapproval silently as Link grew ever more tense.

At least the little snapshots of insight Revali received through his Gale showed that Link was keeping busy, doing… whatever it was he did. One day, Revali carried Link up a pillar overlooking an ominously shaped lake; on another, he lifted him up a Malice-coated tower erupting out of a fortress that no Hylian could have claimed in a century. A labyrinth of enormous walls rising from seemingly out of nowhere made him stare, and consider when he returned to Medoh's head how little he really knew of the world and its mysteries. Too late to remedy that now, other than what he could glean looking through Link's eyes.

Then Revali appeared to find a horrifyingly familiar red beam of light targeting Link's chest, tracking his progress up no matter how swiftly Revali tried to carry him, and was forced to leave just as the mechanical beeping accelerated. He crouched on the top of Vah Medoh, his final moments against Windblight Ganon running through his head as he remembered the piercing burn of that laser cutting through feathers and flesh, reaching into his frantically beating heart. Stilling it.

Not one hour later, he saw the familiar blue light.

"I'm sorry. I would have been here sooner, but I promised Mipha that I would go and see her whenever I used her gift."

Revali scoffed, attempting a disdainful glance down at his half-expected visitor.

"If you think I spend all my time up here fretting over your survival…" But his heart wasn't in it. With a sigh, he appeared in front of Link, sharp eyes taking in the singed ends of Link's braids. "Looks like you escaped by a hair. I'm not sure how you managed to—"

"Mipha's Grace brings me back to life when I die," Link interrupted him quietly, and Revali grunted as if punched. "That's why I visit her after. She says she's happy to help, but… I think it's hard on her when she sees me like that."

"You… so you've already…" For some reason the question wouldn't form, the words tripping awkwardly off his tongue, but Link understood.

"Died? Twice, including today," he said, shrugging in an utterly unconvincing attempt at indifference. "It's… I don't like using it, and she can't do it very often, but it lets me push the limits of what I can do. I would have pulled out of there earlier today without it." He grimaced. "I should have pulled out earlier. There must be another way to reach that spring."

Revali huffed, caught between fury and relief. The boy had hardly a blemish on him, suggesting that Mipha did a much more thorough job of healing him than his little fairy companions. Even if he could only cheat death occasionally, the unfair advantages stacked on his side now were astounding… but then, it wasn't as if Revali wanted Link to die.

"Another spring?" he said finally, falling back on the least consequential part of what he'd heard, and Link nodded distractedly.

"The Spring of Power. Maybe if I go around… I'm going to try again."

"You're going to— _what_?"

Revali practically screeched in dismay, but Link only waved with an almost manic grin as he departed, leaving him seething. Hours later he felt the pull, and carried Link over what could only be the Spring of Power, meeting Link's triumphant look with a deadpan glare of his own. Link's success did not make the attempt any less stupid. The reckless knight had courage where there should have been brains, and Revali did _not_ mean that as a compliment.

For reasons he could only guess at, though, something changed after that spring, Link's expression grown thoughtfully distant. Within days, the colorful trees had become rough, reddish rock as the Hylian's sporadic wandering regained its focus—for all the good it did him. Despite his best efforts, Link's quest had hit a bit of a roadblock.

"Death Mountain is too hot to climb," he finally complained to Revali after several days of fruitless exploration, seated on Medoh's talon and looking out, as always, towards Hyrule Castle. For once, he didn't seem to mind the cold that Revali couldn't feel, though he still wore the winged ruby earpiece. Then again, Link had been literally on fire the last time Revali's Gale was used.

"You don't say," Revali told him dryly, seated beside him. The ends of Link's hair looked worse than ever, and Revali's feathers twitched with the effort not to smooth them down. No Rito would ever go out with their braids in such a state.

"I'm sure there's a way to make it up there, but I can't figure it out," he muttered. "It seems like the only creatures that can survive in that heat that aren't monsters or Gorons are those stupid birds that chase me everywhere, and those… weird, black lizards."

"Just keep circumnavigating the mountain, I suppose," Revali suggested, hiding a grin. He would have given a few good feathers to watch Link be chased around by birds. "Approach it from another direction. If there's a path built into the mountain, it's more likely that it was made to reach Hyrule Castle, not this… Akkala place. I can hardly imagine the princess traveling to meet Daruk cross-country."

"Assuming the road still exists," Link muttered mutinously. "Assuming I don't still have to climb it on fire the whole way."

Clicking his beak, Revali gave up. The princess had likely not made the journey while burning, either, but Link clearly needed to finish sulking before he would listen to Revali's overwhelming logic. Apparently being on fire had soured his mood.

With a deep groan, Link leaned back to stare at the sky.

"I bet there's some kind of special armor they make so that Hylians can visit," Link said after a moment. "And I bet they sell it in Goron City where nobody can reach it."

Revali snickered.

"Yes, well. Gorons are certainly… enthusiastic," he allowed, "but they're not Hyrule's brightest race."

Link punched Revali's shoulder unthinkingly, and froze when his fist made contact, his blue eyes flashing towards Revali's in a stunned stare that the Rito was sure he matched.

"That… um…" Link's voice faltered, and he licked his heat-chapped lips. "That wasn't very nice."

"I'm not very nice."

The air felt thick, an indefinable tension springing up between them as Link unthinkingly caressed his fist with a thumb.

"Did you know—"

"No," Revali said shortly. Despite his best efforts to do otherwise, his eyes kept straying to the ends of Link's braids. If he reached out, then maybe…

"The lizards," Link said. Revali blinked, then blinked again.

" _What._ "

"I'm an idiot," Link groaned, clambering to his feet. Revali might have believed his urgency if Link's gaze had not been set so firmly sideways, avoiding Revali entirely as he pulled out his ever handy slate. "That must be how… I need to go."

Disgruntled, Revali watched Link disappear into liquid light, though that tension still clung like a physical weight. What was wrong with him? So he could slap Link across the face if he wanted to. It was good information to have… only that wasn't the possibility his mind kept providing. Was he so desperate for connection that he would seek it out even from somebody he had loathed?

...The unequivocal _yes_ he felt in response made him scowl. It didn't help that Link had practically fledupon reaching the same realization.

"Coward," Revali muttered, meaning it for them both. Link might have left, but Revali had not tried to make him stay.

Something hot and angry grew in Revali in the days that followed no matter how he tried to ignore it. Link was avoiding him on Vah Medoh, though he still used his power daily, and while Revali refused to give voice to his frustration during those brief moments of contact, Link's burning cheeks said that he knew… or maybe that was just the heat. Whatever epiphany Link had reached about lizards must have been more than just a distraction, because he made it to the hottest part of the mountain soon after, gliding through the superheated air like it was nothing. Ash rose in glowing red particles that reminded Revali uncomfortably of something more… Malicious… and Link's attire switched to overly clunky armor and a permanent scowl.

Finally, Revali was called early one evening to find Vah Rudania climbing above Link not far off, mechanical sentries hovering in the air around it. It had the feel of a final defense, and so Revali returned to Vah Medoh with a deep sigh, preparing himself to wait. If Link succeeded, he would know it soon enough. If he failed… well, Revali would have the perfect view of the end of the world when it came.

That wait was cut short only hours later by blue light at the base of Vah Medoh, and Revali tore his eyes from the rising moon—blood red tonight—to glare down, his surprise melting into annoyance.

"I'm starting to think you only come around when you need something," he bit out tersely. If Link expected to be welcomed back with open wings after ignoring him for so long—

"I'm sorry," Link said, and Revali stopped short, the winds of his pent-up anger abruptly deflated. "I shouldn't have left and not come back. It isn't fair to you that I get to decide when I see you, and you don't."

…That was likely the least of the injustices plaguing Revali's afterlife, but the admission was enough to draw him from the top of Vah Medoh, folding his wings irritably. To his surprise, Link had changed from his fireproof armor back into warmer, more comfortable Rito garb, with bundles of wood and blankets strapped to his back. Even his braids had been redone, if not with the precision a Rito would have used then still a good bit neater than their usual state. All in all, he looked prepared to stay for awhile, although his face was tensely expectant, as if waiting for Revali to turn him away. Revali still had half a mind to.

"What happened to Vah Rudania?" he asked stiffly. "I'd assumed you would have boarded it by now."

"I did." Link's head tilted warily. "I opened up the portal so I can travel back there any time. I just… need to sleep first. For a bit."

Studying him more critically, Revali supposed he had a point. It was late, and the shadows lining Link's eyes were deeper than he ever remembered seeing them before. Then he did a double-take, finally understanding his meaning as he took in the contents of his pack once more.

"Here?" he asked disbelievingly. "Next to Medoh?"

"I…" Link's voice was softer now, duller, taking Revali's surprise for refusal. "I can go sleep in the inn, if you'd rather. I just didn't want to be…" Grimacing, Link started to turn.

"Wait." Revali relented, holding out a wing to stop him. He knew how that sentence ended. Link didn't want to be alone… and with a rush of exhaustion, Revali realized that neither did he. "Just this once, you understand? I'm not running an inn for heroes up here."

"Of course." Link's face brightened absurdly, and he nodded, already shrugging out of his pack. Resigned, Revali watched him set up his campsite with practiced efficiency, striking a bit of flint with his sword to start a small flame going and sheltering it until it could withstand the near constant wind.

"Did you know that if you place a bundle of wood down on Death Mountain, it will burst into flames on its own?" Link said, feeding small bits of tinder to his tiny fire. "You can roast a fish just by throwing it on the ground, too."

"If that's the case, then what's the point of the fire?" Revali asked skeptically, and Link shrugged.

"I don't know. It's just kind of cool, I guess." He seemed in an unreasonably good mood considering the task that lay ahead of him, the frown smoothed from his face for the first time in days that Revali had seen. Finally satisfied by the strength of his flame, Link sheathed his weapon.

"Whatever happened to your old sword?" Revali asked, eyeing Link's blade curiously. This one was at least forged for Hylian use, as opposed to the weapons of more monstrous origin that he had carried for awhile, but it was still a common knight's blade. As much as he'd despised that old sword for what it represented, Link seemed somehow incomplete without it.

"The… sword that seals the darkness?" Link's movements slowed as he frowned, troubled. "I don't know. They didn't leave it with me after I… fell… but I've heard rumors that it ended up in a forest somewhere."

"The Great Hyrule Forest?" Revali asked, and Link looked up sharply.

"Maybe. Where is that?"

"North of the castle, I believe." Revali frowned, trying to remember. "Almost directly west of Death Mountain. Not far from where you've been traveling, in fact."

Link nodded thoughtfully, and Revali was certain he'd just determined Link's next course of action.

"Do you think Urbosa will mind that I'm freeing Daruk first?" he asked Revali suddenly. "I didn't exactly mean to. I was just… already there."

"I assure you, she won't," Revali said, rolling his eyes at the idea. "Haven't you remembered even that much about her yet?"

Revali regretted the flippant remark immediately as Link glanced sideways at him, his good mood fading.

"No," he admitted, poking pensively at the flame with an extra stick of wood. "It's all just… bits and pieces. Fragments, really. Nothing to connect them, or to explain why—" his eyes flicked towards Revali's— "why anything was… the way it was."

Revali looked at him for a long moment. Then, before he could second guess himself, he settled in front of the fire next to Link, trying not to feel too offended when Link stiffened.

"Tell me what you remember," he offered awkwardly. "Maybe I can help connect the dots."

Link stared openly at him now, pink staining his cheeks. Maybe his layered clothing along with the fire had left him too hot now, or else it was the bitterly cold wind still affecting him.

"I remember…" Shakily, he turned his gaze back to the fire. "I remember that Calamity Ganon awoke while we were at the base of Mount Lanayru, before Zelda awakened her powers. Everything must have gone wrong after that, though I don't remember exactly how."

"You could say that." Revali grimaced, remembering the moment he'd boarded Vah Medoh, moving to direct it towards Ganon only for that dark violet energy to go racing through its core, and… "I'm certain you can imagine it well enough without me describing it. What else?"

"I know Zelda hated me." The matter-of-fact way he said it was startling, especially when he added, "I think… I didn't mind it, though. I know what she was put through, trying to awaken that power. I get it now… though for a long time after remembering that, it bothered me."

"Hmm, well. I do believe she hated you less towards the end." Revali wasn't sure if that was true, but he thought she'd become less visibly distant. At the very least, he didn't think she'd mind Revali saying it to reassure Link now.

"You hated me." It was almost a question, but Revali didn't deny it, and Link wilted. "You thought it was a mistake for everyone to put their faith in me." He paused, and then added, "You were right."

"Self pity is not becoming of you," Revali said coldly, watching Link's face inch closer to its old wooden mask and hating every second of it. "You went into that battle with no Divine Beasts and no sealing power, with the Guardians against you and nothing but your sword. It wasn't how anybody expected it to be."

"Now I don't even have the sword," Link muttered. With a growl, Revali grasped Link by the shoulders and shook him, satisfied by the startled look he received in return.

"You will," Revali told him firmly. "And you will have Medoh, and Ruta, _and_ Rudania and Naboris, assuming you don't screw it up. And then maybe you can stop coming to the least qualified person in the world for comfort."

"I don't know," Link said, a bit breathlessly. "I think you do just fine."

Revali's annoyance faded slowly, but he did not withdraw his grip from Link's shoulders. Link's breath puffed up between them in tiny clouds of mist.

"You wanted to know why I freed Medoh first," Link said, his voice still unsteady. "There was… one other thing I remembered. Do you still want to know?"

Revali stared at Link, at the way Link stared at him, had _always_ stared at him, and realized with a wave of dread that he knew. He didn't want to, but he knew.

"I want…" He hesitated. To press his beak against Link's tiny Hylian nose and braid a feather in his hair? To push him off the top of Vah Medoh? He wanted to fly. "I want you to get some rest. You have a large task ahead of you tomorrow… you should be ready."

With an effort, Revali pulled back, taking his wings from Link's shoulders and wrapping them around himself as he looked up at the red moon. Clouds had started to form now, pushing against the wind through the sky.

"When the blood moon's over," Link said after a moment, and Revali didn't dare look at his face. His voice said more than enough.

Together they watched as black and red specks blotted the air like disease, and for one ominous moment, the entire world was bathed in red. Then it was over, the restless energy fading as the full moon shrank down to its natural pale shape. Link sighed, wrapping himself in his blankets and lying against the cold stone of Medoh's perch.

"Lots of red Lizalfos getting a second chance at life tonight," he muttered. "Doesn't seem fair."

No, Revali thought, watching Link's moonlit face go slack, his breathing gradually evening out. It didn't seem fair at all.

* * *

Vah Rudania's beam of light joined Medoh's and Ruta's before the next day ended, the three meeting at Hyrule Castle with an expectant air. Only one left to go, though Revali was certain Link had not turned his attention to the desert just yet. Maybe it was too much to expect one memory-bereft person to move mechanically from task to impossible task without allowing him time to gather, regroup, and move on… and that accursed sword beckoned.

"I think you're right," Link told him a few days later, once he'd finished whatever remaining business he had in Goron City. "I think that forest is where the sword is."

"Wonderful," Revali griped. He wondered how Link's conversation with Daruk had gone. The Goron leader had always seemed like the steady, reassuring type, someone who could find the bright spot in the darkest situations and roll with the punches as they came. Link probably needed what he had to offer more than any of Revali's cynical observations… but still he had returned here.

"There's something… off about it, though." He sounded distantly confused, his gaze turned towards that forest for once rather than the castle, and Revali raised an eyebrow. "You can't enter it from the air. You just… can't." He frowned as if even he didn't understand what he was saying. "You have to enter by the road, I think. It won't let you in any other way."

Revali scoffed.

"You speak as if the forest has a mind of its own," he said dismissively, though Link only tilted his head at him.

"Are you sure that it doesn't?" Revali's disparaging response withered on his tongue. "Don't… don't be surprised if I don't use your Gale for a few days. I don't know…" His eyes slid towards the forest again, the rest of his thought lost before it was finished. Revali felt a chill go through him.

"I already told you," he said stiffly. "I don't sit here all day fretting over your well-being."

He wasn't entirely sure that Link heard him.

The following two days were more unnerving than Revali wanted to admit. As predicted, Link didn't call on him, and Revali could not escape the morose, ever-present knowledge that he would not know if Link died. It was a ridiculous thought to be burdened by—Link had already survived three of Ganon's manifestations, and there was surely nothing as dark as that lurking in those woods—but he couldn't shake the idea that Link had been right. There was something… unnatural in those woods, something he almost imagined could reach him even where he stood. Something that made every feather stand on end whenever Revali's mind brushed against it.

When he saw the strands of blue light announcing Link's return, Revali's first reaction was relief. He descended in a rush without waiting for Link to call up, his mouth already open to demand to know what had happened—but Link's appearance stopped him.

His hair had come almost completely undone, falling in tangled waves around him, but Link seemed not to notice or care. Outwardly unharmed aside from a few scrapes and bruises, his eyes were fixed on the ground in front of him, and his shoulders had a slant that seemed part exhaustion, part something else. It was his face that disturbed Revali the most, though, a poor imitation of the expressionless mask he had worn over a hundred years ago that did not quite hide all. In those uncovered cracks, he looked disheartened. Dejected. Lost.

There was no darkness-sealing sword on his back.

"The sword wouldn't have me," he mumbled. "I'm… not as strong as I used to be, I guess."

"It… what?" Revali stared uncomprehendingly.

"The sword that seals the darkness rejected me," Link snapped, then withered at his own words, his gaze sliding to the ground again as if anchored there. "Go ahead and laugh. I'm sure you think this is hilarious."

In a time not far gone, Link would have been right. The very sword that had placed him unfairly above all others, now withdrawing its approval? Revali would have been rolling on the ground. Now, against all odds, it seemed that he and the sword had reversed opinions.

With another look at Link's wild appearance, Revali clicked his beak.

"Come here."

Blinking, Link shuffled forward, looking almost relieved to let somebody else tell him what to do for once.

"Sit down," Revali ordered, and Link sat, though this time with a half curious look at Revali as he did so. Good. He hadn't gone completely spineless. "Do you carry a comb with you?"

"Yes," Link said slowly, reaching into one of his many pockets to withdraw the small object. Revali snatched it deftly from his fingers, seating himself cross-legged behind Link and sizing up his unruly head of hair. This could take awhile.

Link flinched, stiffening as Revali's feathers prodded at his blonde tangles for a moment before diving in with the comb, starting at the ends to minimize snagging.

"What are you doing?" he asked finally, and Revali answered with a laugh that was more of a sigh.

"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm putting you back together. Once I'm done, you're going to admit that this doesn't matter and move on."

"What?" Link tried to crane his head back to look at him, but a sharp tug from Revali set him firmly back in place. "How can you say that? If I'm not the one chosen by the sword, then maybe I'm not the one who's supposed to…"

"Save us all?" Revali finished, a bite to his tone. "I suppose you should go tell Daruk and Mipha that. I'm sure they'll be happy to climb back into their Divine Beasts to await a more divinely sanctioned hero."

"B-but," Link stuttered after a moment's pause, and Revali knew they were inching towards the heart of things. "If I'm not even strong enough to draw that sword, then how could I be strong enough to… to take on Ganon?"

"The sword's blessing didn't help you much the first time," Revali pointed out, and Link went silent, though a quick glance at his face revealed his stubborn frown. "You Hylians were always too caught up in your prophecies and predestination. Too eager to push the weight of the world onto children just because some sword said so _._ " Link grunted, and Revali forced himself to use a lighter touch, moving his comb further up Link's head. His frustration was getting the better of him. "An army of the land's strongest soldiers with could almost certainly slay that beast, but instead your king was content to place the responsibility on you, his daughter, and four Champions… and when all five of those supporting you fell, he heaped it all back on you. Maybe your prophecies ensure that at least one person will step up to defend Hyrule, but they also ensure that _only_ one person will do so." Satisfied that he had removed most of the knots, Revali threaded his fingers through Link's hair a few times before tying most of it neatly back, leaving out the pieces that framed his face. "Frankly, I can imagine a better way of doing things."

Link said nothing. His eyes had fallen shut, and his breath came so slowly that Revali might have thought him asleep had he not been leaning into his touch. Revali couldn't resist running a curious finger down his smooth, unfeathered cheek, though he disguised the movement quickly, gathering the hair that fell over one ear and portioning it into equal sections.

"Was I really so much better then than I am now?" Link mumbled dejectedly after a moment, and Revali _tsked_.

"Personally, I wouldn't trust such judgments to a sword," he muttered, leaning in to weave the hair carefully together. The texture was coarser than the fine feathers he was used to, but it held the braid well. Revali eyed his work critically, then abruptly unraveled it, fingers shaking as he plucked a feather from the middle of his wing to thread into the hair. It didn't really have to mean anything. In fact, the feather would likely disappear before long, like his tears did each morning. Revali just wanted to see it there, if only for a moment… but to his surprise, even after he'd finished that braid despite his trembling and moved onto the next, the feather still held.

"Maybe we were right the first time," Link said suddenly, and Revali paused to listen. "You and I, keeping everyone at arm's length… maybe the only way to achieve your true strength is to stay distant. Shut yourself off."

Shaking his head, Revali finished the second braid, securing the end with the provided bead. Turning Link around to eye his handiwork, Revali straightened the golden headpiece with its embedded ruby behind Link's ear, the carved feathers flaring out over its pointed tip. For the first time since meeting him, Link actually looked presentable. The blue of Revali's feather stood stark against the paler gold of Link's hair, the one color perfectly suited for the other.

"Even if we were right, would it be worth it?" he asked wearily. Link looked up at him, his lips tight and trembling. Abruptly, he convulsed, ducking his head and digging his palms into his eyes as his shoulders shook, a choked gasp escaping him.

Revali closed his own eyes, paying Link the same courtesy he'd been given during that sunrise weeks prior, but he did lean forward, pressing the length of his beak gently against Link's forehead to dip against his small nose. Link only shook harder, short, wet sobs erupting between his lips no matter how he tried to stifle them, until his tears ran along Revali's beak. The feather would stay. Link might not understand the significance like a Rito would, just as there were likely a dozen ways for Hylians to show affection that he wouldn't recognize… but Revali knew.

"You're going to free Vah Naboris," he told Link fiercely. "Then you're going back to that forest to try again. If the sword still refuses you, you will take on Calamity Ganon with a stick if you have to, because that's who you are."

Link shifted beneath him, wrapping his arms around Revali, and before he could react, Link had pulled back to press his lips against the tip of Revali's beak. They stayed like that for a long time, crouched together at the foot of the Divine Beast, until slowly Link's breathing eased and he pulled away. Although he had not felt Link's warmth, Revali still felt colder without him.

"I thought you hated me," Link muttered, wiping hurriedly at the salty wet tracks staining his cheeks.

"Who says I don't?" Revali shot back, and finally Link's face split into a grin, a reluctant, breathy laugh bursting out of him. He supposed it was a ridiculous assertion to make at this point, although it might have been better for them both if it was true.

Maybe something of his thoughts bled into his expression, because Link's newfound smile slowly faded.

"That very first memory I ever got back," he said after a moment, his eyes losing focus as if he were in that moment reliving it, "that night at the base of Lanayru, I remember how desolate everything felt. Walking down the mountain path to watch Zelda tell everyone that her power had not awakened… and then Ganon choosing that moment to return… it was like he could sense that we were at our lowest." Closing his eyes briefly, Link took a deep, steadying breath. "But then you flew up for a better look, and I remember watching you fly, and the feeling I had about—for you…" He half shrugged, as if that could lessen the impact of his words. "I didn't know why I felt that way for the longest time, and… you probably never returned it… but once I'd remembered, I couldn't forget it. I didn't _want_ to forget it," he amended, eyes suddenly blazing. "It was the only hopeful memory I had."

 _Hope_. Revali wanted to laugh, though there wasn't much funny about it. How long now since he had flown?

"Does it still give you hope?" he asked, bitterness touching his voice. He could have left this world with no attachments, no regrets… though he couldn't bring himself to regret it. "Even knowing that there's no good way for this to end?"

To his surprise, the tiny smile Link offered was the most genuine Revali had ever seen.

"Maybe it shouldn't," Link admitted, reaching again for Revali's beak, which he surrendered with a sigh. "But it does."

* * *

The very next day, Link made it to the desert.

Revali couldn't help but resent the fact that Link had finally found his focus just when he wouldn't have minded one of those signature distractions, but he refused to suggest to Link that he slow down. Urbosa was still trapped, after all, and however Link tried to extend it, they were existing together on borrowed time. He could feel the princess's power waning now, Ganon straining against it to exert his influence over the world, and so could Link in the increased caliber of monsters he was suddenly forced to fight. It was only a matter of time before Zelda's strength gave out entirely, and Link was forced to face the beast he'd been fated to fight all along.

Link felt that time slipping away as keenly as he did.

"No men allowed in the city?" he said as Revali carried him up over Gerudo Town's walls, clearly a question. He had started to use each instance of Revali's Gale as an opportunity for conversation, as if to make up for all those unremembered months of silence… but he would need more than the power of flight to make it past the Gerudo's rigid security. Even as he left, Revali could hear the distant shouts of guards.

Revali considered the issue, awaiting Link's next call.

"There's a simple solution to that problem," he said when it came with a knowing smirk that left Link floating away on his paraglider disgruntled. It would occur to him if he thought about it hard enough. Revali thought Link had a slim enough figure to pull it off, especially where the Gerudo were concerned. Most he had seen carried enough muscle to beat the average Hylian man into the ground.

Sure enough, Link was attired _very_ differently the next time Revali saw him.

"Not a single word," he growled. Revali, being who he was, had several, which he delivered with his next Gale.

"Will you be wearing that on your next visit?"

The remark was so forward for a Rito that even _he_ flushed beneath his feathers, but Link's expression as he left was more than worth it.

Link used his Gale so frequently that Revali began to fear it wouldn't be available to him when he really needed it, though he couldn't find the will to complain. His days on Vah Medoh were more full than they had ever been, and Link came to visit almost every night, curling up by his fire as Revali talked him into sleep.

"You really think you could beat me?" Revali asked half jokingly on one such occasion, refreshing the work he'd done on Link's braids. That feather he'd tied in had yet to fade, and Revali wondered if it would persist until he left this world for good. It was too much to hope that it would last for any length of time after. "Success has left you arrogant."

"Well, why not?" Link argued. "I beat a Silver Lynel the other day. I told you about that, right?"

"At least twice," Revali said dryly. "Tell me it sprouted wings and I'll be more impressed. How do you expect to hit me if you can't even reach me?"

"Stasis rune." Revali frowned. Whatever that was, Link sounded too smug by half, so Revali tugged on the braid he was working on. "Ow! Or we could fight at the Flight Range, where I can use my paraglider… or I can use your Gale—"

"You really think I would lend you my _Gale_?"

Link laughed, and Revali realized his feathers had grown ruffled at the thought. Hastily, he smoothed them down, though he didn't begrudge Link his laughter. Even now, that sound was rare from him.

"Maybe that wouldn't work so well," Link agreed, and Revali nodded in response, tying off the final braid.

"Maybe not. Still, you and I should have fought one hundred years ago. A duel against the one who came to Rito Village to challenge my authority… just imagine!" He pushed his voice as deep and grandiose as it would go, gesturing dramatically with his wings, and was rewarded with another laugh. "The hero of the Rito against Hyrule's mightiest knight! A battle for the ages!" Even Revali chuckled a bit at that, settling back with a sigh. "Win or lose, I would have liked a chance to settle the score with you."

He wanted more than that now, but the other would have been nice, and Link hummed in agreement, settling against his chest and running a hand down his newly smooth braids.

"Stop that," Revali snapped, but Link defiantly ignored him, running a finger down the feather's path through his hair. It was a losing battle anyway, with what Link put them through every day.

The fire crackled and hissed, the wind sending sparks flying away from Link's carefully chosen resting spot.

"I'll be going into the Yiga Hideout tomorrow night," Link said after a moment, huddling close against Revali's form, though Revali was almost positive he didn't provide any actual warmth. "If I use your Gale, stay quiet. I don't know if anyone but me can hear you, but just in case..."

Revali nodded, not stating the obvious: that once Link had the Thunder Helm, there would be nothing stopping him from boarding Vah Naboris and freeing the final Divine Beast, and its Champion.

"Whatever killed Urbosa in battle will be a monster to reckon with," he said instead, because it was true. Urbosa had been a dynamic force of destruction when she wanted to be, one that even Revali would be nervous to go up against. Flying would not save him from the lightning she wielded effortlessly with a snap.

"Teba told me what the feather means." Revali froze, shifting to glance down at Link's face. The firelight flickered over it, cloaking it in strange shadows. "He wanted to know whose feather it was. He didn't recognize the color."

"Did you tell him?" Revali asked, his voice high and strained. Of course another Rito would know. He hadn't considered that.

"I did."

"Did he believe you?"

"I don't know." His head tilted thoughtfully as if he actually believed Revali cared about the answer. "Teba didn't believe me at first when I told him I was the original Hylian Champion. Now I don't know what he thinks."

"Well," Revali said, flustered. Link had yet to voice his opinion about it. "It's very possible that the custom has changed since I was alive. A hundred years is a long time, and the Calamity altered so much—"

"Revali," Link interrupted him, reaching around to put a reassuring hand on his face. "I love you, too."

"O-oh." Revali faltered as Link pressed his forehead against his beak. Suddenly all his worries seemed a bit foolish. "I love you… too."

Link smiled against him.

"Yeah."

Pulling Link in close, Revali hoped with all his heart that when Medoh tore into Calamity Ganon with its cannons that it _hurt_. No revenge would make up for what he was about to lose, but at least he could make the beast feel a portion of his pain.


	3. Chapter 3

Early update again. Happy Thanksgiving, I guess ;) Sorry this chapter couldn't be... um... happier... but what goes down must go up, right?

* * *

Link used his Gale only once in the Yiga Clan's hideout, where Revali circled Link in near silence to send him safely up towards the room's wooden rafters with a tense eye on the hulking Blademasters prowling below. The Hylian Champion looked almost unrecognizable in his dark Sheikah garb with his hair swept up in a neatly pinned bun, though his braids dangling to either side spoiled the effect in a way that Revali rather liked. His expression hid behind a veil that masked the sound of his breathing, but he gave Revali a reassuring wink just as he vanished, as if infiltrating this base was some sort of game and not a potentially fatal mission. Still, Revali did not rest easy until Link called on him again, rising back over Gerudo Town's walls.

"Got it!" he said triumphantly. "I—ahh!"

Revali sighed in fond exasperation as he left Link to deal with the incensed Gerudo guards, having neglected to wear the _vai_ outfit in his rush. How could Link be so capable sometimes, yet on other occasions be so hopelessly dense?

There was little time for reveling in his success, though, as the next day held an all too familiar anxiety that had not lessened out of repetition. Revali hadn't expected Link to visit in person before boarding Vah Naboris, but as he sat and watched the quiet mundanities of Rito life playing out below, he still fought the old fear that those moments by the fire would be their last spent together. That his final fleeting image of Link would be of him rising through a corrupted Vah Naboris, the sticky smog of Malice swallowing him whole. That Revali would wait vainly for Link to make contact, hour after hour growing less and less certain of Link's return until he was eventually forced to admit that it would likely never come.

After hours of such helpless brooding, blue light at the base of Vah Medoh brought only partial relief, as a quick glance at the red lights targeting the castle confirmed that Link had not managed to free Naboris while Revali was lost in thought. Had he decided to take a break? Link should have been nearing the end of the process by now, but if the Divine Beast's interior had proven a greater puzzle than anticipated then maybe—

Link's collapsed body materialized against the rock, and Revali seized up at the sight of so much blood.

" _Link_!"

With a burst like a small gale, Revali appeared to kneel beside him, green flames rolling off his feathers in agitation as he turned Link onto his side and almost retched at what he saw. Raw, painful looking burns bubbled across Link's skin, their spidery pattern visible through the gaping tears in his blue tunic, but Revali's eyes were drawn to the blackened gash splitting his torso, the clear source of all that blood. Link's eyes cracked open, and he coughed painfully.

"Hey there," he groaned, hunching over weakly, and a part of Revali wanted to slap him. "That thing was… fast. Didn't expect…" His hands were clenched tightly around his Sheikah Slate, shaking as the cold began to set in. Then again, it might have been shock. Revali felt the beginnings of that himself.

"Shut up," Revali mumbled, his wings flapping uselessly for a moment before pressing Link's tunic against his wound. It was not anywhere near enough to staunch the bleeding, but it was all he could think to do. "What was it? Was it…"

"Thunderblight Ganon," Link whispered, his whole body shaking now. "You were right. He was a beast."

"Just hold on." Revali grimaced. Even if it was the least of his worries right then, it still pricked to discover that the blight that had killed him was not even the worst of them. "If—if this is as bad as it looks, then Mipha will be here any moment and—"

Link shook his head slightly.

"No."

Ice shot through Revali. He could feel nothing, but he felt cold.

"What do you mean, _no_?"

"She healed me… too recently," Link rasped. "Needs more time… to gather strength. Jus' need to hold on… until then… so I had to get out…"

Revali stared at him. And exploded.

"And you came _here?_ You idiot!" he seethed. "You halfwitted Hylian! You stupid, sentimental—"

"Only place I could think of," Link mumbled, his hoarse, confused voice cutting across Revali's panicked insults. "Couldn't remember…"

Revali tugged at the Sheikah Slate in Link's hands, but even as the rest of him weakened, that grip remained unbreakably firm.

"You need to go somewhere else," Revali snapped, prying at Link's fingers. " _Anywhere_ else." Almost any village would be better than here. They would have supplies, and maybe elixirs, and—

"No." Link's blue eyes flickered, focusing. "I've died enough times to know that I'm not… I'm not there yet. Just stay with me and I'll be fine."

Revali's own eyes flashed wildly.

" _How_ do you expect me to—" Link's slate refused to recognize Revali's touch. Obviously interacting with the living world only went so far. "You're going to freeze to death up here." Link had already lost enough blood to explain the shaking, but here on this tall, windy peak his lips had started to resemble the color of Revali's feathers.

"P-pouches." Sure enough, he was stuttering now, that unnatural blue framing his pained words. "Y-you'll find—"

Revali didn't hesitate. Digging through Link's various pouches, he dumped the contents roughly on the ground. The winged Rito headpiece with its embedded ruby bounced out, and Revali plucked it up quickly, clipping it around Link's ear so the heating magic could take effect. The worst of his shivers subsided immediately, though he groaned in pain as his body tried to unclench.

"Good," he breathed. "See? I'll be just fine."

"You—no!" Revali protested. "I mean, yes, of course you'll be just fine, with the kind of luck you have how could you not, I'm sure you'll be—be riding Lynels or whatever idiotic thing it is you do for fun by sundown, but you should really be in Zora's Domain or, or Kakariko Village—"

"No," Link said, the slate in his hands trembling from the strength of his grip. "Kakariko's shrine overlooks the village… not many people go up there. Zora's Domain… somebody might see me but… no saying whether…" He spasmed, and Revali leaned over him anxiously, but after another moment he relaxed. "Came here… habit… think it was the right place. Anywhere else I… might die alone…"

"So you decided to make me watch instead?" Revali spat, and regretted it immediately when tears gathered in the corners of Link's eyes. "No, I didn't mean—of course I'd rather you were here."

Looking over Link's prone form, he felt a rush of determination. He didn't need to save Link, just… keep him alive for long enough. Trying to work quickly but gently, Revali stripped Link of his Champion's tunic, balling it more firmly against the wound to staunch the bleeding and trying not to think about how the top of his cliff would be permanently stained red after this, a constant reminder of however this night ended.

"Could you… distract me maybe?" Link asked weakly, and Revali grunted.

"What did you have in mind?" The breath hissed through Link's teeth as Revali pushed harder, but he didn't dare let off the pressure.

"Um, what you were doing before was… pretty good," he murmured, and Revali stared blankly.

"What, insulting you?" Revali wracked his mind for the words that had always come to him naturally. "You… you flightless fool. You natural disaster. You clumsy harbinger of—"

Revali was certain that his words grew less coherent over time, but Link didn't seem to mind, even laughing at times with a pained hiss of breath that made Revali's beak clench. Too soon, though, Link's reactions grew weaker and weaker, until he barely responded at all.

"Come on, you… Link, stay with me," Revali said, his creativity finally exhausted as he glanced up at the sinking sun. How long had it been? "Can you feel her yet? Open your eyes!" he snapped urgently, and saw the barest sliver of blue peek from beneath Link's eyelashes as he tried to comply. "Is Mipha ready yet?"

"Miph… a?" Link whispered without comprehension, and Revali breathed in sharply.

"This isn't working. Let me see your slate."

It was no comfort to Revali when he easily broke Link's hold on the Sheikah Slate this time, gripping Link's wrist to navigate the menu with his unresponsive fingers as he frantically considered his options. Goron City, too hot. Gerudo Town… the map placed that shrine outside the city walls. Rito Village. He remembered that shrine, back when it had only been a dark, mysterious mound. Nobody ever went there. Nobody had any reason to visit those out-of-the-way shrines that only Link could make use of.

"Hateno," Revali snapped. "Will anybody see you there? Link, listen to me. What about the Hateno Research Facility?"

"Green… was my favorite," Link mumbled distractedly, his eyes widening a fraction further to stare blearily at Revali's face. "Even before…"

"That's enough." Revali was yelling now, he realized, frightened to his core when Link barely flinched. "If you die trying to tell me about my eyes, I will never let you live it down, do you understand? I will drag your spirit back here and mock you for all of time." Link smiled, his eyes slipping shut, and Revali grasped him by the face. "Stop that! You think you know about dying? I'm an expert, and let me tell you, it's not great! If you go trying it now—"

"She's here."

Green flame enveloped Link in flickering light as his smile deepened, a long breath escaping him in a rush, and time seemed to stop as Revali's head snapped up, disbelief and hope warring across his face. Mipha floated silently above him, her eyes flicking between them both before softening with understanding.

"You haven't seen him like this, have you?" she asked Revali gently, kneeling next to Link to place her hands over his chest. Cool green light spread rapidly from her fingers, knitting Link's wound back together as Revali watched and smoothing his ruptured skin. "Link will be fine. You did well, Revali. Thank you."

"You're saving his life," Revali protested blankly. It had been an age since he'd spoken to anyone other than Link, but all he could think was that he'd never given Mipha enough credit. "All I can do is make him fly."

"He needs that, too," she assured him. "And… other things." The sad acceptance in her voice said she knew. "Thank you for being there for him. He needs that most of all."

The more cynical part of Revali wanted to protest that her contribution still held the greater practical value, but as the healing light faded and Link's eyelids fluttered open, he lost the will to argue.

"Thank you," Link told her, and Mipha nodded wearily as if they'd had the interaction many times before, a ritual Revali had never been—should not have been—privy to.

"It was my pleasure," she said, her voice already fading as her spirit was pulled away, and it struck Revali how unfair it was that she had only those brief moments of lucidity with Link each time she put him back together. No wonder he always made a point of visiting her after.

Her ghostly form vanished entirely, and time resumed its normal pace. Link sat up, unballing the shirt pressed against his side and examining his new, pink scar for a moment before throwing the blue tunic back on, the gaping slash in the fabric the only outward hint that a blade had come anywhere near him. Blinking, Revali looked beneath Link and realized that the blood on the rock was gone, too.

"The tunic even mends itself," Link said, and Revali saw Link following his gaze with a wry quirk to his lips. "Great Fairy magic. In a couple hours I'll be good as new."

A blank slate, Revali thought, ready to be carved open again… or, almost blank. He had seen enough of the skin beneath to know it was riddled with scars.

Link's amusement faded as Revali stayed silent, and he clenched his fists nervously.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have… I'll make it up to you. I should have gone…" Where else was there to go?

"You _would_ apologize for dying," Revali said abruptly, and Link almost crumpled with relief, as if he'd expected… anger? Rejection? "Mipha is a saint for putting up with you like that."

"Yeah, well." Link shrugged, but couldn't hide the stupid grin spreading across his face. "You made it pretty clear that if I died before she came, you would kill me again."

"I'll have you know I meant each of those insults literally," Revali told him, and the expression widened.

"Really? Even when you told me that I sounded like… a 'stumble-tongued songbird with a head cold,' I think it was?"

"You're making that one up." Revali said haughtily, folding his wings. He had no recollection of ever stringing those words together like that in his life.

"Can't be." Link cocked an eyebrow. "I think that's the only one I remember."

The two stared at each other for another moment, then moved as one. Revali enveloped him in his wings, pressing his beak against Link's forehead as Link stroked it with equal desperation.

"If it's ever a choice between dying alone or with someone you love, come to me," Revali whispered. "But if you're dying and able to call for help, then I'm begging you, _please_ , go to someone else."

"The great Revali, begging?" Link choked out with a laugh, and Revali really meant to knock him over the head, but the movement became more of a caress. "I'm sorry, but… I have to go. If I leave Urbosa waiting inside Naboris any longer, she'll spit me on her scimitar."

It took a moment for his meaning to sink in, but when it did, Revali drew back sharply.

"You defeated Thunderblight?"

"I did." Link's eyes sparked with grim satisfaction. "He thought he had me down, but I got him in the end."

"So all you have to do is tap your slate against the main control unit and Naboris is free?" Revali asked disbelievingly, and Link nodded. As utterly relieving as it was that Thunderblight Ganon would not get its second chance at Link… "Urbosa might actually kill you."

"She's going to have to wait in line," Link quipped, finally pulling away, though the remark had too much truth in it for humor. Revali's eyes were drawn to the castle as he left, where a fourth beam of light would soon join all the others. Nothing stood between Link and that castle now. Between Link and Calamity Ganon.

* * *

As often as Revali informed him that such things weren't necessary, Link was set in his decision to "make it up" to Revali, and claimed to have thought of a way to do it.

"Is there anywhere in the world you want to see before… leaving?" he asked, kicking his feet over the rock's edge with Revali standing beside him, not meeting his eyes. "Anywhere at all?"

Revali considered it.

"I've always wanted to see the inside of Death Mountain," he said with mock sincerity. Link punched his leg.

"I'm serious," he insisted. "Pretend… pretend we were traveling together or something. Where would you want to go?"

Sobering, Revali thought about it. Where would he have gone if his training had not consumed every waking moment of his life? Before he was chosen as Champion, he had never traveled further south than the Great Tabantha Bridge, or ventured past the Hebra Mountains. It hadn't bothered him then, though having seen so much of the world now as Link traveled it, it made his own life seem somehow small. Still, now that it had been dangled for so long out of his reach…

"Home, I guess."

"I was going to take you there anyway."

Those glowing strands that circled Hyrule Castle grew thicker by the day. How much longer before Ganon broke free? Before Link decided it was time to end things on his own?

"The ocean," he said at last, feeling silly for admitting it. With only the surrounding lakes for reference, he had never really believed that any body of water could be so large as to appear endless, though he suspected now that it was a naive notion to think otherwise.

"Okay." Link nodded, and though his eyes crinkled at the corners, he didn't smile. Revali thought he smiled less these days, though he didn't seem to notice. "I guess I'd forgotten that I went down the coastline before freeing Medoh. I think… I think I know a good place."

Link didn't travel there right away, though, insisting that the timing had to be just right—and he _was_ Link, after all, an adherent to nobody's timeline but his own. In the meantime, he did… everything else.

After freeing Naboris from Ganon's control, Link hardly sat still, jumping from place to place across the continent and taking his title of "hero" far too seriously in Revali's opinion, helping anyone he met who even hinted that they might have a problem. For the most part, this put him in a good mood, his weary face content as he recounted it all to Revali over their fire each night. The tasks he found for himself varied wildly, some as mundane as tracking down a lonely man's lost cuccos, and others as bizarrely out of place as organizing a wedding—but there were those that left him sour.

"I took out an enemy camp today," Link said, swiping angrily with one of his salvaged swords, this one so long and sharp it almost cleaved the air itself. These training exercises had become a nightly routine ever since he'd remembered their existence, a way to familiarize himself with weapons that could not withstand the constant use he made of them. "A bunch of Bokoblins were stealing this lady's sheep. Destroying her livelihood."

"I was there," Revali said, which was almost true. He had carried Link over the unsuspecting encampment, leaving just as Link drew his bow.

"She found me afterwards to thank me. Said she finally felt safe watching her flock." Link grunted viciously, moving his sword in a parrying motion. There was nothing in the short story to say why it had bothered him so, but the red moon hanging in the sky made his explanations for him. For all Link's efforts, that woman's reprieve would be temporary, her tormentors restored to life like so many had been before.

"You can't singlehandedly solve all of Hyrule's problems," Revali sniffed. "You should…" _Defeat Calamity Ganon_. "...take a break tomorrow. Do something other than the menial nonsense you've been doing."

Link gave him a look _,_ but he stopped his motions, leaning forward on his knees to catch his breath in short, rhythmic puffs. His cheeks were red with cold and exertion, redder still in the light of the fire, and his eyes looked cool and bright in comparison. Revali could not tear his own eyes away.

"There's an island," Link said eventually. "I haven't explored it yet, but I think there might be an old shrine there. Maybe I'll go check it out."

Revali voiced his immediate approval. Aside from his firelit nights with Revali, Link always seemed most at ease when exploring the wilds—a convenient trait to possess, given that he'd had an entire continent of wilderness to reacquaint himself with. Maybe it wouldn't hurt for Link to have just one day devoted to restoring his spirit.

He was more than a bit taken aback, then, when Link called on his Gale the next day, soaring over an angry camp of Moblins, utterly naked.

"This is entirely your fault!" he roared at the startled Rito, enemy horns blaring through the air as he whipped out a crude-looking bow and took aim, and Revali returned to the jarring calm of Vah Medoh feeling equal parts confused and concerned. It wasn't until late into the night that Link returned to tell him irritably about the trials of Eventide Island, and Revali startled them both by laughing harder than he ever had even in life.

"You wouldlaugh," Link muttered, though the mood was catching, and a reluctant smile tugged at his lips. "I'm _sunburnt_ , Revali. In places that have probably never seen the sun before today. It is freezing up here as usual, I am covered in layers, and underneath it all, I'm sunburnt. Do you know how ridiculous that feels right now? _Revali?_ "

Revali couldn't respond. Finally, Link broke down and laughed along with him, and in that way Revali considered the day a success, though Link might not have seen it so. If smiles were harder to earn these days, then laughter had almost vanished completely, neither of them finding much funny in their world as it wound towards an inevitable ending.

There was one loose thread that laid heavy on both their minds, though neither had the courage to mention it, one that was tied up abruptly and, on Revali's part, without warning. Blue light wove together at the base of Vah Medoh, indicating an increasingly rare daytime visit, and Revali's surprised greeting faded to nothing as it coalesced. Link was wearing the darkness-sealing sword.

"Well?" he asked, arms spread wide in an unvoiced question. After weeks of Link's rotating armory bearing everything from forked boomerangs to enormous claymores, Revali had almost forgotten the image of the silent knight with the fated sword strapped across his back, staring steadily at Revali as he tried and failed to provoke a reaction. Link's expression was eerily similar now to the one he'd worn back then, as if it were tied to the weight of that sword, and Revali glanced at Link's braid with the blue feather woven through to remind himself that time had passed.

"You didn't tell me you were retrieving it today."

"I know how you feel about this sword."

Link had only the barest notion of how Revali felt about that sword, but it seemed like the wrong time to correct him.

Slowly, Link drew it from its sheath, sunlight glinting off the blade's sharpened edge, and began the series of maneuvers he'd performed a hundred times before on this rock while Revali watched—only this time was different. There was no learning curve for this sword as there had been for every other weapon, no adjusting his grip so it better suited him or pausing to feel out its weight. Every slash and parry came quick and certain, the blade moving precisely as Link directed and not an inch further, as if the sword had become an extension of Link the moment he picked it up—or Link a part of the sword. It was the weapon he had been born to wield, the force pointing him unerringly towards Hyrule Castle.

Revali wanted to throw it off the cliff.

"Well?" Link asked again, twirling the sword unnecessarily before sheathing it. Revali still didn't know how to answer. He wasn't even sure he understood the question.

The silence stretched.

"Soon?" Revali said abruptly, looking past him, and Link nodded after a moment, following his gaze to the castle.

"Soon."

* * *

Even knowing it was coming, Revali still felt winded when he appeared beside Link one day among the artfully balanced dwellings of Rito Village, gliding up and above the wooden platform that now bore his name. The steady, familiar click of churning windmills ignited a longing he had not recognized the depths of until that moment, and returning to Vah Medoh after those painfully brief moments felt like tearing his heart along lines that had only just scarred over… but then Link called him again, and again. Until his strength to answer ran out, Revali responded, drinking in the colorful details of home that he had too often taken for granted in life. In many ways it was like viewing the world through glass—he could not feel the cold breeze that turned the windmills, or smell the salmon roasting on cookfires or the everpresent scent of pine. Still, it was home, and, he knew in his heart, would always be his home.

"Was that okay?" Link asked, arriving at Vah Medoh as soon as physically possible once it was over, and Revali nodded. Lied.

"Of course."

"Good." There was a bittersweet smile on his face now, and Revali dared not respond in kind, afraid that the bitter might overwhelm the sweet. "Did you want me to take you to…"

"Please," Revali said, knowing this next one would be harder still. He was right.

Once he'd recovered his strength, Link called on him again, this time at the Flight Range. In some ways it was better, because as he circled the air among the peaks and glowing blue targets where he had dedicated so many hours of practice in life, Revali could almost imagine that he was flying… only he was so clearly _not_ flying that he nearly wept. That deadening glass seemed thicker here where the wind should have been sharper, rippling through his tasseled scarf and sending the beads in his braids clattering. He wondered if flight awaited him in the next life, the feel of air pushing against his wings and whipping around his feathers as his powerful muscles propelled him skyward, or if that had been a thing of this life only, and the price he paid for failure was to remember it until he left.

Still, he could not bring himself to deny Link what he knew he truly wanted: to give Revali life, in the only way he knew how. However his battle with Ganon ended and whoever he managed to save, there could be no restoring what had already been taken away, no matter how desperately Link wanted to… so when Link asked if he was ready, Revali swallowed his "no" and nodded, hoping only that whatever pale experience Link gave him would hurt less this time with no personal attachment to the place.

Instead, he was rewarded with the sun.

The ocean was there, too, spread out far below the cliff Link had chosen with no land in sight beyond, but it was the rising sun that caught and held his focus, each individual ray like an arrow of light piercing through him as he rose. Suspended in the air, with no mountains or land between them, he thought for one brief second that there was no Calamity—that maybe nothing existed but himself and that sun, and Link, rising alongside them.

"So… how was it?" Link asked when they had both returned, his anxious hope made painfully clear by how he couldn't quite meet Revali's eyes, his hand twisting around a braid so nervously it had nearly unraveled.

Setting that hand firmly aside, Revali grasped Link in his wings, and felt all that nervous tension seep out of him as he buried his head in Revali's scarf. There was nothing he could think to say that was not too corny or wholly inadequate, but Link had rarely seemed averse to silence before and he did not complain for it now, saying nothing in return as Revali's tears fell, pushed from his eyes by the rising sun.

* * *

When Link called Revali's Gale to Mount Lanayru, Revali knew what it meant. Maybe it was the repetition of events coming full circle, the battle with Ganon arriving each time at the base of Lanayru's slopes, or maybe it was the arbitrary feeling of balance restored. First Zelda, and now Link had visited every ancient spring, gaining whatever godly aspects they could from the holy water. The rest was up to mortals now.

"Is Naydra freed, then?" Revali asked as Link appeared early that evening, wishing he could force his voice even a degree warmer but lacking the strength. Seeing the strands of Malice clinging to the ancient dragon, overriding her will with its own, had left Revali both grateful for what had _not_ been done to him, and terrified of what still might happen. That dragon was a living, breathing creature, not a machine like the Divine Beasts designed to be controlled, yet that had not stopped the Malice. Those staring yellow eyes had followed Revali all the way back to Vah Medoh.

"Of course." Link's bravado was a weak imitation of its usual self, too. He stood motionless as if waiting for something, although Revali didn't know exactly what. Maybe a comment on his upgraded arsenal? He had strapped a Zora trident to his back for some reason, crossing it over his sword, and his colorful Gerudo shield was far finer than the beaten wood or metal he usually carried. His bow…

His bow.

"Where did you get that?" Revali breathed, and Link breathed deeply in return, unlatching the Great Eagle Bow from his back and presenting it to him in steady, outstretched hands. Now that Revali considered it, he realized he had rarely known those hands to tremble. The mark of an expert swordsman, he supposed.

"The Elder gave this to me ages ago," Link explained as Revali held his old bow carefully, running a finger down the aging wood. "Back when I freed Vah Medoh. Teba convinced him that I could make the greatest use of it."

It had been well-maintained over all this time, the bowstring changed and the painted patterns not even peeling. The cloth he'd tied around it once had faded from its original bright blue, but there could be no stopping the advancing years completely.

"Have you?" Revali asked, and Link shook his head.

"To be honest, it's been hanging on a wall in my house all this time. I couldn't… can you imagine if I'd broken it fighting something like a bokoblin? Besides, from what little I remembered back then, I wasn't really sure that you would want me using it."

"You have a house?" Revali said, and Link frowned as if Revali was purposefully trying to derail him from the obvious next question. Maybe he was.

"I've spoken to Mipha and Urbosa already, and I have their blessing to use what they left behind." Link spoke clearly, as if Revali might miss his intended point otherwise. "I want to know if you will let me wield your bow when I fight Calamity Ganon tomorrow."

Tomorrow. Just like that. Revali held the bow up experimentally, pulling the bowstring past his cheek.

"What about Daruk?" he asked, and Link's solemn expression broke for a moment as he winced.

"Daruk's weapon is a solid piece of stone almost as tall as I am. I had to ask his blessing _not_ to bring it with me, and I think he was still disappointed."

Revali breathed a laugh, relaxing his grip on the bowstring to face Link directly.

"If I give this to you, you'll use it to avenge me?"

Link looked from the bow to Revali, a fierce glow lighting his windburned face. So many nights had been spent on their windy rock that the rough red in his cheeks was almost a permanent feature now.

"I will."

"Then it's yours to use with my blessing. However!" he added sharply, snatching it back just as Link was on the brink of taking it. "This is not a bow for amateurs, especially when used aerially as seems to be your preference. Most Rito would barely have the strength to draw it in the air."

"Teba… might have mentioned that," Link said, confusion twisting his brow. "What are you saying?"

"What I'm saying is that you will take my bow into battle with the confidence required to unleash its full potential, or not at all. Here." Revali gestured him forward. "Let me show you."

For an hour that he would have extended forever if he could, Revali put Link through his paces, familiarizing him with all of the weapon's strengths and quirks and demonstrating how to cluster his arrows together for maximum damage. Link was a more than adequate shot, almost an expert, but Revali still found plenty to critique in his form, making small adjustments to his grip and his aim and hearing Link breathe harshly in his ear each time he leaned in, as if grit alone were holding him together through this. This would be part of his legacy, he realized, watching Link draw and fire three arrows in one smooth motion, already more confident in it than he had been at first. If only Revali had been given time to pass on more. His Gale would die along with him now, he realized wistfully, and wished he could have shared his knowledge with… somebody.

"There," he said at last, when it was finally too dark to continue. It would do Link no good to exhaust him fully the night before his greatest battle, anyhow. "I guess it's theoretically possible for you to best Ganon as you are now… with my help, of course."

"That's it, huh?" Lowering his bow, Link gave him an amused glance. "That's all I get from you?"

"What? Were you looking for words of encouragement in my dulcet tones?" Revali smirked. "I can understand why you would desire such a thing, but having me keep you in line will have to suffice."

"I see." Link's smile softened. "Maybe someday, then."

"…Maybe." Revali blinked, and coughed. "I imagine you'll want to sleep in the inn tonight. A Rito-down bed will give you a much better rest for your battle tomorrow than another night spent on the cold, hard—"

"Don't be an idiot," Link interrupted him flatly, and Revali stiffened instinctively before he relaxed, letting it go. It wasn't a point he intended to press.

Curled up together beside the fire that night, conversation was slow. Each time Link tried to crane his neck to stare at the castle, Revali redirected his head firmly to press against the feathers of his chest.

"Time enough for that in the morning," he said, and Link nodded slowly, burrowing in further.

"Is there anything you want…?" he started to ask, his voice muffled in Revali's feathers, but lost the nerve to finish. It seemed they had both decided separately not to acknowledge this night as any sort of final goodbye—just another ancient beast to slay, another old friend to free—and the unfinished question skirted too close to that line of admission. Revali answered it anyway, though.

"When all this is over, I have a message for you to give from me. To Teba."

Link pulled back in surprise, looking up.

"Anything. What is it?"

"Tell him I said that I do not believe he will ever match my accomplishments."

Link blinked up at him, opening and closing his mouth.

"Do I have to?" he asked, clearly regretting his hasty assent, and on any other night Revali would have laughed.

"Tell him that," Revali said firmly. "And then tell him I said that I hope he proves me wrong."

Link's face relaxed, and he nestled back into Revali's chest.

"I can tell him that."

Link had never struggled to find sleep before, and even with the weight hanging over him, he did not struggle now. Maybe it was a gift unique to Link that he could sleep whenever he wanted, or maybe it was Revali's presence that did it. He had no way of knowing, but hoped for Link's sake that it was the first.

Revali did not sleep—had not slept in a hundred years—but he did let his mind wander through memories and imagination, and in this way he almost dreamed.

He almost dreamed about flying.

* * *

"Brace yourself, Ganon, for the sting of my revenge!"

Revali thought that every Rito below him must have heard his call, it burst from him with such strength… though if they somehow missed it, they certainly did not miss what came next. Bluish white light gathered and erupted from Medoh in an instant, ramming into the abomination within Hyrule Castle with a strength that would have seared his eyes to watch it if he'd still had eyes to see. In that same moment, three identical beams shot out from every corner of the land, meeting Medoh's where the darkness gathered—and that darkness _shrieked_.

"Burn, you swine," Revali muttered viciously as the attack drew on, waning now as Medoh exhausted its reserves of strength. Before long, the beam had vanished entirely, the clear blue sky appearing almost dark in that light's absence, and Revali waited with open tension, knowing that each of the other Champions must be doing the same. Had it worked? Had they…?

Ever so slowly, that darkness began to reform, and Revali felt his heart sink. It had not been enough to destroy the beast, but they _had_ managed to weaken it. They must have… which meant the rest was up to Link.

Revali waited, barely noticing the chaos that had erupted beneath him as every Rito in the village took to the air, straining to get a better view of Vah Medoh, and the figure standing atop it. They should have been looking to the castle, not to him, though they had no way of knowing it yet. Nothing mattered but the unseen battle so far away, the one that so few in this world were even aware of but that would decide the fate of them all. Unfair, that, or Revali would have found it so, but Link had frustratingly never cared much for recognition.

Another shriek split the air, the Malice writhing and regathering as its thickening strands formed an enormous beast outside the castle walls, and Revali leaned forward intently. It could mean that Ganon had finally broken free to wreak havoc, that Link had failed to contain the abomination, but… a tiny beam of light followed the monster to its chosen arena, so small he might have missed it with anything less than Rito vision, and smiled triumphantly.

"Link might actually do this," Revali murmured to Medoh with affected surprise that couldn't quite hide the excitement in his voice. He was so close to… to… he still didn't know for sure, but after one hundred years he was ready for something different. "He always was luckier than he had any right to be."

Link called on Revali's Gale one last time before the end, in those suspended moments just before the Calamity's death. He did not look at the Rito that carried him up, too intent on lining up his final shot, but Revali looked at him, at the feathered braid fluttering wildly and the fierce determination lining Link's battered face at every angle as Revali circled him through the air. The wind already gusting up in the wake of the beast's attacks made the Gale itself unnecessary. Maybe Link had just wanted him nearby for one final, unspoken goodbye, or maybe he hadn't wanted him to die alone.

Only as he left did Revali finally look into the eye of Calamity Ganon, one split-second before Link's shining arrow pierced it through. They had said that Ganon was intelligent, though Revali sensed none of that now. In that hateful yellow orb, he saw nothing but an animal's rage and fear, as if it too was trapped in a cycle it had no way of breaking.

Revali almost could have pitied it then, but he didn't.

He left, but did not return to Vah Medoh. The dark material that had caused so much pain gathered in on itself beneath that burning light, quailing, shrinking, screaming as the princess finally appeared in all her shining power to banish it from her world… and it was gone.

And so was Revali.

Revali felt that darkness leave, felt the shackles holding him break, and he was free. He rose—was he flying again at last, the wind in his wings like he'd remembered for so long?—Hyrule vanishing from sight and mind as he looked up, and saw the sun. In that one brief moment, he thought that maybe nothing else existed but himself and that sun—and Link, standing somewhere below.

He felt a twinge of regret.

" _You defeated him, eh?"_ he murmured, though he was no longer certain that he had a voice to speak with as that light consumed all. _"Who would've thought?"_

In the distance, he heard Vah Medoh shriek, a long, piercing cry that tugged on his heart, holding it. Anchoring it.

For a very long time, that was all he heard.

Revali blinked, and then blinked again. He was staring at the sun.

"Who would've thought?" he muttered, raising a wing to his head. It hurt.

Slowly, he sat up, realizing only as he did so that he had been lying down. He appeared to be atop Vah Medoh, who for some reason had perched itself directly above Rito Village, its mechanical beak turned towards Hyrule Castle where a dusty haze obscured all but that it still stood despite Calamity Ganon's attack. Lake Totori was far distant beneath him, the Hebra Mountains sprawling beyond that, and to his surprise, tall, spiraling towers dotted the land around him as if they'd sprouted overnight, all glowing that same Sheikah blue that he'd come to associate with Medoh, and… with something else he couldn't quite put a feather on.

"Who would've thought…"

He shivered, the icy wind cutting through even his insulating feathers at this height and sending his blue scarf flapping wildly. The feathered skin around his eyes felt particularly cold, and raising a finger to his face, Revali realized he was crying… probably from the wind, or from staring at the sun. Not his best idea, that.

 _Who would've thought_ … What was he trying to say?

"How," he said instead, wiping the thought from his mind as his brow creased with the beginnings of irritation, "did I wind up all the way up here?"


	4. Chapter 4

Revali was weak, his wings shakier than a newborn hatchling's, although he did not discover this until after he had already jumped from the top of Vah Medoh. Half flying, half falling, Revali just managed to make it down to the main landing of Rito Village without breaking any limbs, although it was an embarrassingly close call. Fortunately, it seemed that only one Rito had been near enough to notice his indignity—a white-plumed stranger who was already swooping towards him, looking more than a little alarmed.

"What happened up there?" he demanded in a rough voice, settling on the landing beside him. "Are you okay?"

"Yes, yes," Revali grumbled, climbing hastily to his feet and dusting himself off to hide the shaking in his knees. "Clearly, I'm fine." The flight from the base of Lanayru had been frantic, all the more so when he'd seen the destruction unfolding beneath him as the princess's prized Guardians turned sides, but that didn't account for the weakness he felt now. Had he become ill somewhere along the way? Why could he not remember?

"You fell from the top of Vah Medoh," the white Rito said bluntly, and Revali shot him an annoyed glance for interrupting his thoughts. He was looking Revali up and down now, his brow furrowed in a frown. "What were you doing up there? I don't even think I know y—" His eyes paused on Revali's Champion scarf and froze, flashing back to his face as if seeing him anew, and he took a half step back. He'd figured it out. "You're… no way."

"Yes, I know," Revali said, too impatient to bask in the admiration of another Rito as he normally might. "It's an honor for you, I'm sure, but I need to go…" He hesitated. Where? What he needed was to be with Medoh, but somehow the thought of going back up there was unbearable. "Is there any news from the castle?" he asked instead. "Calamity Ganon is free, and—"

"Calamity Ganon is dead," the stranger interrupted him, and it was Revali's turn to freeze, staring at him in disbelief. "I heard Medoh making a racket, but I never imagined… you're… you're Master Revali, right?" He took a deep breath, his shadowed eyes wild as if he fully expected Revali to deny it. "Link defeated him almost a month ago. Don't you remember?"

"No," Revali muttered, "that—that can't be—" He was shaking again, he realized, quivering like a leaf, and he couldn't seem to stop. Nothing about that added up. Calamity Ganon was… dead? Just like that? And he'd somehow misplaced an entire month? "That's not possible. It can't have been…"

He needed to go. Unthinkingly, Revali crouched, calling on currents of air to send him rocketing skyward, and remembered too late that he was in no shape for such things when the "gale" he produced could barely have lifted a pebble, much less Revali. The effort he expended was the last he had to give, though, and only the stranger's quick leap forward prevented him from collapsing to the ground completely.

"You really _are_ Revali," he whispered with something beyond awe, lifting him up with shaking wings. That alone might have soothed Revali's wounded ego had he not immediately followed with: "We need to go find Link."

Revali flared up, trying to push away but only succeeding in leaning more heavily on the other Rito.

"What gave you the impression that I want _him_ staring at me right now?" he demanded when all his efforts got him nowhere. The legends must have vastly overstated Ganon's power if Link had truly defeated him without aid… unless the other Champions had made it to their Divine Beasts unhindered and attacked without Revali. He would never live that down, if so. "Anybody else would be preferable."

The stranger's eyes widened.

"Okay then," he said carefully, a new tone that struck unease into Revali's core. Why so careful? "Let's go talk to the Elder."

Which was all well and good, and a much better idea than his first one, except the aging Rito he led him to was not the Elder.

"Who are you?" Revali asked flatly, his heart inexplicably thumping as he stared at the owlish stranger rocking in a chair where the Elder should have been. Was somebody trying to play an ill-timed prank? "Where is Kaepor?"

"Oh ho!" the old Rito hooted in surprise, his rocking coming to a halt. "Kaepor, you say? I have not heard that name in… oh, many years. I am Kapeli, the Elder of this tribe. Teba, who is this stranger to know such names?"

"Stranger?" Revali said in a strangled voice—who in this village did not know him, if not personally then at least by reputation?—but Teba interrupted him.

"This is Master Revali," he said, giving the false Elder a meaningful look that Revali could not begin to comprehend but made his heart pound faster. "The last thing he remembers is Calamity Ganon breaking free, and I think we'd better let Zelda explain the rest. We need to send word to the—the castle that he is… awake."

"I can fly there myself," Revali snapped, finally pushing away to stand on his own. His knees chose that moment to almost deposit him onto the ground, of course, but he would gain his strength back eventually. Anything was better than staying in this cuckoo's nest.

"You can barely walk, much less fly," Teba said, the awe in his voice finally dimming in frustration. "If you think I'm going to let you just wander off when—"

"Who are _you_ to tell me whether I can—"

"Revali?" Kapeli cut in, his shocked voice rising over them both. "Why, surely that is impossible!"

Teba glared at him so fiercely that he cut off, blinking in slow surprise as he looked at Revali again, his eyes lingering on the scarf.

"I… see," he said slowly. "Very well, then. We should send—well, normally I would say to send you, but I imagine that you would rather stay here, am I right? We will send Harth to find the princess instead. Yes," he repeated to himself contentedly, already settling back. "She and the Champion will sort this out. Teba, go fetch him for me."

"With all due respect," Revali began as Teba turned reluctantly to leave, forcing that respect into his voice because even if Kapeli wasn't _the_ Elder, he was still _an_ elder, if a senile one. "I don't know you or Teba or this… Harth… and I don't understand why I should sit here on your orders."

"Well, why should you know anyone?" Kapeli said kindly, and Revali saw Teba's eyes widen, saw him open his mouth to interrupt, too late. "You have been dead for over one hundred years!"

Suddenly, Revali found that he had no choice but to sit after all.

* * *

Memories were a thing of body and spirit, most fleeting when written on one and not the other… or at least, that was the explanation offered when all had gathered in the cramped space of Impa's home in Kakariko Village only a day later. No explanation was given for how such a thing might have occurred in the first place: every Champion, returned from death and reunited at last. A miracle, so they said, though Revali still struggled to see it that way. He still didn't remember dying.

"Our memories get recorded here, you see," the girl who called herself Purah said, tapping at her own head, and Revali looked between her and Impa. His only vague memories of them were of two young to middle-aged Sheikah sisters, but now one was too old and the other too young, and somehow that was the least concerning part of this whole situation. "Right up in your noggin. Without the physical process of memory creation occurring, it's no wonder that you don't remember your attack on Ganon, or anything preceding it until the moment of your death. Even that might be a blur, given the trauma of such a thing."

"So—pardon me for interrupting, but—do you think they'll be getting those memories back?" It was Mipha's brother who spoke, with a name Revali had heard and immediately forgotten because honestly, how many new names could he be expected to remember in a day? Despite his royal status, he looked nervous to be addressing a room full of legends, even with Mipha gripping his hand. "Or do you expect that they're gone… for good?"

"I suppose there could be some eventual recall," Purah mused. "It's such a tricky thing to predict, though… isn't that right, Linkie? Have you recovered anything beyond what was in those images Zelda left you?"

Revali glanced over at Link only to find the Hylian's eyes already on him, though they shifted away so quickly that it might have been nothing. Woodenly, Link shook his head, and Revali thought with disgust that even defeating Ganon hadn't made a dent in the knight's blank exterior. He had never liked that stony expression Link seemed to put on each morning along with his sword and tunic, but the sight of it now incensed him more than usual.

"You see? It's impossible to know for sure," Purah concluded, pushing round glasses up her tiny button of a nose. "That isn't to say that those memories might not find other ways to manifest, of course. Spiritually, or perhaps subconsciously."

Zelda placed her hand on Link's shoulder.

"What they experienced in those Divine Beasts was… not pleasant, Prince Sidon," she said carefully, and though her words were for the Zora, her eyes lingered on her knight. "I believe it was quite lonely and painful. Perhaps it would be kinder if they did not remember it."

Link's eyes barely flickered as Zelda leaned in to whisper something further in his ear, but Sidon looked properly abashed.

"So… we won, then?" Mipha said tentatively, sparing her brother a quick, sympathetic glance that Revali didn't understand. She had been the only one of them who still had any but strangers awaiting her when she awoke. "It's all over?"

Impa nodded gravely, and Zelda gave a little laugh.

"Yes," she said with a contented sigh, her lifelong weight lifted. "It's over."

And so it was, Revali supposed. A storybook ending, or it seemed so on the surface. No doubt the histories would record it that way.

"It just doesn't feel right," Daruk complained quietly—for a Goron—scratching the back of his head. "We were all revved up for the fight of our lives, and then… nothing. Where do we go from here? Without Calamity Ganon to defend against, is there even a need for Champions anymore?"

"One hundred years," Urbosa murmured, her eyes tight with a loss Revali knew too well—a loss echoed in all their eyes. Hadn't Daruk been a father? "I almost wouldn't believe it, but… we must move forward. My understanding is that there's quite a lot to rebuild. I'm certain our work isn't done just yet—or at least, _I_ intend to offer aid where I can."

Revali didn't respond to the obvious challenge in her words, too busy watching Mipha and Sidon.

"I would have expected him to be happier," he observed as Mipha held a comforting hand to her brother's cheek, speaking too softly for anyone else to catch. Although he had put on a cheerful face, Prince Sidon was clearly crestfallen.

"Oh, he's happy," Zelda said regretfully, and Revali gave a start. He hadn't noticed her quiet approach. "Ecstatic, even. It's just… complicated. I believe he visited her a great deal while her spirit was trapped with Vah Ruta, yet on her return she greeted him as a stranger. Of course he is thrilled to have her back, but they will have to become acquainted all over again."

"Ah. A problem unfamiliar to the rest of us, then." Revali shook his head. "I don't imagine that we had many _visitors_."

He intended his words rhetorically, and was surprised when Zelda hesitated.

"Of course," she said eventually, and her eyes shifted to the side as her head turned, her hands coming to rest on her hips. "Ah! Where did Link run off to? Ever since he found out—" She cut off, giving Revali another strange look. He was beginning to tire of receiving those looks, all of which suggested that he was missing something still, something crucial.

Wherever Link had gone to, he'd had the right idea. This room was too crowded, too many people talking to no effect and not enough answers despite all the words.

"Excuse me," Revali muttered, pushing past his fellow Champions and out the doors into the open air—an action he regretted almost immediately. The sun had set on their discussion, and the vast darkness of night pressed in on him in a way both unfamiliar and terribly familiar, something he preferred not to think about too hard.

Stubbornly, he descended the staircase past the Sheikah on guard, who stared after him with an awe that was surprisingly starting to wear. Revali would have preferred to be admired for the skills he had honed through his devotion, not for returning to life through a still unknown process that he suspected he had not had a hand in at all. A glimpse of white feathers turned him quickly in the opposite direction for similar reasons. None of the land's societies had been eager to see their Champions disappear with the princess so soon after regaining them and the Rito had been no exception, but Revali still didn't know what to do with the near-worship burning in Teba's eyes—in _all_ the Rito's eyes.

In the distance, he saw the soft light of a fire, and automatically walked towards it, moving easily through the busy paths of Kakariko as people jumped to give him space. Only as he drew closer did he discover who already occupied that fire, along with the answer to the princess's frustrated inquiry, and wonder if he should back away before he was seen.

Link took the decision out of his hands, swinging his head up to stare at Revali and grinding him to a halt. For a moment they only looked at each other, the venomous comment Revali had prepared upon seeing him lost in the teasingly familiar flicker of fire across Link's face.

"Congratulations," he found himself saying instead. Then, when Link's eyebrows rose, he hastily amended the statement to add, "That is, you performed better than I expected, which isn't saying much. From what I'm told, you took your time about it, and I don't imagine you could have done it without our help, so maybe you are not to be too highly commended after all."

Link shrugged as if it was all the same to him, and Revali scowled. Why was he even attempting to make an effort? Losing all his memories had clearly not changed the core of Link at all… but the thought of leaving him alone at that fire again brought out an emotion he couldn't begin to describe, much less trace back to its origin. Sympathy, that's all it was. Pity for somebody who had lost even more than he had.

"You did defeat him, though, didn't you?" Revali admitted reluctantly, seating himself by the fire across from Link, and Link straightened, taken aback by his decision to remain. Well, his knees had started to wobble again, the day of rest he'd had since returning to life not enough to recover him fully. No point in trying to stand only to fall flat on his face. "We all did, though I don't remember it."

Link's eyes bored into him, and his scowl deepened. He'd remembered too well how it felt to be on the end of one of those silent stares. At least after tonight, there would be little enough occasion for them. The need for the Champions had dissolved with Ganon's death, whatever Urbosa said. Medoh would still need watching over, and that would no doubt attract the princess—and Link, of course, ever Zelda's shadow—but visits would likely be few and far between.

...There was no reason for that thought to make him feel as if his insides had been scraped away.

"You're not acting the way I thought you would." Revali stirred. Even as he saw Link's lips move, it took his stunned mind a moment to connect that quiet voice with the knight sitting in front of him. They were the first words he had spoken… in Revali's memory, ever, though that didn't mean as much as it once had. "Everything I remember says you should have said… I don't know. Something else."

"I could easily say the same of you," Revali managed to say, then cleared his throat. "Have you finally decided to grace the world with your thoughts, then? It certainly took you long enough."

It was not a particularly cutting remark, especially by his standards, but Link's eyes widened, his mouth working as he stared at Revali in momentarily unguarded surprise.

"So I've heard," he choked out, though he quickly regained his equilibrium, watching Revali out of the corner of his eyes. "You've said that before, you know. The very first time I spoke to you, almost word for word, you said that."

"Really." Revali's brow furrowed with annoyance. How disconcerting to think that his reactions to events could be so predictable, and to Link of all people. "I suppose I don't need to reintroduce myself to you, at least. No doubt, being so knowledgeable, you know me better than I do at this point."

"No, I…" Revali could almost feel Link retreat from the bite in his tone, though he didn't physically move. "I'm sorry. I… haven't had a lot of time to think this through. We were already at Vah Ruta when Mipha appeared, but she was so weak that it wasn't until this morning that I realized that she… that you… none of you would remember me. Now it feels like maybe saying the wrong thing might ruin it all permanently this time around, so it's easier not to…" He laughed as words failed him again, an ugly, humorless sound. "I think I understand who I used to be a lot better now. I kind of wish I didn't."

"I think you have it backwards," Revali said dryly, raising an eyebrow. It felt odd to realize that beneath all that silence, Link had been thinking actual thoughts, if these confused, half-informed ramblings even deserved the term. "I remember you quite well, unfortunately. My understanding is that you barely remember me, though I suppose we've had some recent form of limited interaction."

"That's the thing though, isn't it?" Link said, wrapping his arms around himself, though really it wasn't very cold. "Everything you remember about me, I've forgotten, while everything I remember about you, you've forgotten. It's kind of like remembering somebody who no longer exists… only not like that at all, because you're here." The last part he spoke softly, with a sort of wonder, and Revali was forced to look away from the sudden intensity of his blue gaze. "I still can't believe you're here."

"With anybody else I'm sure that would be fascinating, but we were never all that close," he muttered uncomfortably. "Not to my recollection, at least. I can't imagine that your experience was any different." Link said nothing for so long that Revali finally chanced another glance up, only to find Link staring pink-cheeked into the flames. "...Am I wrong?"

"Listen," Link said abruptly. The fire popped and hissed, sparks flying up in a flurry as a log collapsed. "I always hate it when people ask me whether I remember something that I obviously don't, just because they wish I did, so… so I won't do that to you. It never helped me remember a thing anyway."

"But you're implying that there's something to remember." Revali frowned in fierce irritation. Now _Link_ was giving him that look, the same as everyone else. "It's self-serving in its own way to tell me that much and nothing else, you know."

"I know," Link admitted, his soft, regretful voice only riling Revali up further.

"Don't tell me that _you_ came to visit me on Vah Medoh?" he continued with a sneer, the momentum of his frustration too much to stop. "Aren't you capable of making friends without cornering someone who can't escape?"

He'd expected his words to sting, but not to the extent that they did. Link actually jerked at the impact, the last splinters of his apathetic mask tearing loose as he whipped his head to stare at Revali, his round blue eyes wide and, for just that instant, afraid.

"I don't know," he whispered, taking a deep, steadying breath and turning back towards the fire. "I don't know."

Revali held his tongue stubbornly. An apology sat at the base of his throat, festering, but he refused to let it free.

"Master Revali? Link?" The gruff voice of Teba was unmistakable, and Revali's head jerked towards it. Teba's golden gaze was considerably warmer for Link than for him, and he wondered just how much he had heard. "Princess Zelda is looking for you both."

Revali rose quickly, eager for a chance to escape, but for all his haste Link beat him to it.

"Thanks, Teba," Link mumbled, though still with the ease of familiarity, and Revali felt an unwilling stab of jealousy. Maybe Revali remembered more of their past, but Link had already found connections to this unfamiliar world of the present, a prospect Revali found increasingly daunting. "I'll be there in a moment."

"I'll let you tell her that," Teba said, leaning against a nearby tree with the clear intention of sticking around until they left. "I'm not one of your Hylian messenger birds, you know."

"...Fine," Link said, eyeing him askance before shaking his head, turning back to Revali. "I have something for you. Not with me," he added when Revali gestured impatiently. "I'll… bring it by later."

"Wonderful," Revali griped. That meant at least one more awkward confrontation to look forward to. "Shouldn't you be getting back to the princess? If I know you at all, you get antsy leaving her side for more than two seconds."

Link said nothing as he adjusted his sword belt over his tunic, raising a hand to tuck absently at the hair falling over his ear. There was something in the gesture that bothered Revali, though he couldn't put a feather on what. Link's hair was no neater or messier than usual, and it wasn't as if he'd ever worn it any other way.

"I already told you," he said at last, turning away. "You don't."

It was a statement, but also a challenge, and maybe an invitation? Either way, Link left it hanging there, walking back down the path to Impa's house as Revali watched. The crowd did not part for him as he walked so much as cling, accepting him as a part of them, and Link waved to those who called out to him as he passed as if he knew each of them as well.

"You're… different from what I thought you would be." That would be Teba, his rough voice disapproving now that Link was out of sight. Revali scowled at him, though the expression had no effect. So much for awe and wonder.

"Really?" he said caustically, not bothering to repair Teba's perception of him. The Rito of his time had known him well enough to take his sharper side in stride, but whatever stories they'd told after his death must have smoothed over those rough edges. How long until all of Rito Village looked at him like Teba did? "And just how, pray tell, should I alter myself to better suit your expectations?"

"You're an inspiration to all of us, you know," Teba said with surprising honesty, and Revali could no longer meet his eyes. "What you achieved was legendary. I've trained my whole life trying to achieve what you did, but… I can't pretend to know what happened one hundred years ago, but in this time, Link is a friend to the Rito. He tamed Vah Medoh when nobody else could, and gave us back the sky. Try to remember that when you speak to him."

So that was it. Link had come through and won his people's hearts already, the challenge between them over before Revali could even respond. If forced to choose between them now, who would the Rito pick? Did Revali dare find out?

"I'll remember it," Revali hissed through his clenched beak. "Consider whether anybody could live up to a hundred years of legend surrounding their name, though. I am a master of flight, and the most skilled Rito archer ever to hold a bow. Content yourself with that."

Not waiting for Teba's response, Revali left, feeling those golden eyes burning on his back as the crowd parted around him once more. Separating him. Well, if Link could find a place in this world, then Revali could do it, too.

...He hoped he could, at least.

* * *

The novelty of the Champions' return eventually wore thin as even the greatest of miracles must, and Revali's days fell into a routine almost identical to the one he had kept before the madness of Calamity Ganon upended life as he knew it.

Almost.

Within days, Revali reached his former strength; within weeks, he had surpassed it. Within a month he was reaching heights with his Gale that he had not previously thought possible, reveling in the way the wind cut through his feathers and rattled his beaded braids behind him, pushing tears from his eyes with its merciless chill. Revali's old home in the honored space near the top of Rito Village had long since found new occupants, of course—most recently, Teba's small family, a mark of the honor he had already earned as a warrior—but he found the small hut attached to the Flight Range a more convenient space to hang his hammock anyway. There, he could train for as long as he wished, resting only when exhaustion forcibly grounded him, panting, the muscles in his wings screaming from exertion as he massaged them furiously until the shaking subsided enough for him to take to the skies once more.

Whereas before he had trained as someone who wanted to be the best, he trained now with the intensity of someone who never wanted to land, deciding that if it was possible to live life only in the air without breaks or rest then he would be the first to do it. There were those who had thought his Gale impossible before he proved them wrong. Each time another Rito saw him soar past at speeds hitherto unknown and stared after him in startled wonder, Revali took deep satisfaction in the knowledge that their awe was all for what he had done himself, and not for supporting Link in a battle he could not even remember fighting.

In the evenings, Revali lit a fire, though it had not previously been his habit, and as he huddled exhausted beside the flames that formed a too-thin barrier between himself and the heavy darkness, he tried not to think about the surprise he felt each time he looked up to find the space across from him unoccupied. If he didn't remember, then it didn't matter, and the only company he might have kept that he would have forgotten was probably not worth remembering anyway. In the mornings after waking as he brushed tears irritably from his eyes brought on by the rising sun, Revali reminded himself again that he was grateful to be alone. How odd that he should need such constant reminders. He had never felt a desire to have anyone weighing him down before.

The only lack he had yet to fully remedy was the loss of his Great Eagle Bow, which he couldn't help but feel keenly, though he supposed it had been too much to hope that such a fragile object would survive for so long. Luckily, the village's main bowyer showed some promise, even if he wasn't as adept as the more experienced weaponsmiths of Revali's time. Harth was a dark-plumed Rito who observed the world through his sharply angled feathers with an air of silent judgment, though that air faded noticeably as Revali entered his hut. Not many were inclined to judge the resurrected Rito legend, Revali had found. So far, none but Teba.

"You want me to remake your Great Eagle Bow," Harth said when Revali had finished explaining what he needed, his voice flat. Flat, and a bit puzzled. "From scratch." He paused. "Have you spoken to the Hylian Champion recently?"

Revali reminded himself that Link was a friend to the Rito. That he had proven himself worthy of the honor given him… eventually… and that his only real sin was his silent, unfathomable stare, and the fact that Revali just didn't _like_ him. It didn't help much to remember these things, but he felt he should be commended for the fact that he tried.

"I have not spoken to that… _Link_ … in some time," Revali said stiffly, eyes narrowing as he added, "What does _he_ have to do with my bow?"

"I can recreate the weapon, though it will be a process of trial and error," Harth said, avoiding Revali's question and his gaze, though Revali hadn't gotten the impression before that he shied away from anyone. "A lot of knowledge was lost with the Calamity, including the making of your bow, but I'm willing to try. It would go faster if I had the original to work from, of course. Even the broken pieces would be something."

"Unfortunately, we can only work with what we have," Revali said, not quite masking his impatience. He had no way of knowing where his bow might have gone, or if pieces still existed. "I'm willing to help in whatever way you need—"

"First though," Harth said, interrupting him, and Revali's beak clicked angrily. Now _Harth_ was giving him that look, as if he too possessed hidden knowledge. "Before we put in the effort… you really should talk to Link."

Link. _Link_. His presence was inescapable, even when he wasn't there. Resolving to interrogate the slippery Hylian about his bow the next time they crossed paths, in the meantime Revali took to tinkering with a spare Falcon Bow late into the night. He knew his Great Eagle Bow inside and out, and had made his own weapons long before he'd obtained that masterpiece. He could do this on his own if he had to, just like everything else.

* * *

Time passed in a blur of motion, day becoming night becoming day, and when a missive finally arrived from Zelda to request the Champions' presence, Revali could hardly believe that several weeks had gone by. Almost, he considered deferring, certain that he'd more than fulfilled any duty he had to Hyrule and its Royal Family, but found the idea of interacting with anyone who knew him already a surprisingly relieving prospect… and Link did know something about his bow. In the end, he accepted the invitation, but declined the offer of travel by Sheikah Slate, far preferring the use of his own wings over the sensation of watching his body dissolve into light. Early the chosen morning, he departed Rito Village, eager to see how quickly he could make the journey to Hyrule Castle… and found to his dawning horror as he flew that he had never before understood the scope of that event they called Calamity. He hadn't even come close.

"I… almost don't know where to start," Zelda said soon after, staring with understandable overwhelm at the Sheikah Slate's small map as her Champions gathered around. Although this was their first time gathering together since Kakariko, Revali suspected now that Urbosa at least, and perhaps the others, had already come to visit. The same idea had not occurred to Revali, although a part of him wished now that it had. "The Sheikah are fully committed to reviving the kingdom of Hyrule, of course, and their support and manpower will be equally invaluable, but… there's just so much. The castle will take years to repair, and as for the town…"

Revali said nothing, not feeling much like talking as he stared out the gaping hole in Hyrule Castle's sanctum, where the four of them—and Link—had been declared Champions in that overly pompous ceremony so long ago. From up here, he had a perfect, sweeping view of the decay he had already seen up close. Hylian society had not been destroyed so much as decimated, the entirety of Castle Town and the surrounding villages razed to the ground so thoroughly in some places that almost no stone stood upon another. Revali had never held any particular love for Hylians and their self-centered society, but he hadn't wished them such ill-will, either. Seeing nothing but crumbling stone and grass where proud blue-tiled buildings had once stood, Hyrule's most prosperous civilization reduced to less than rubble, had struck home the passage of time more forcefully than anything else had managed to do so far.

"You should start small," Urbosa suggested, placing a comforting hand on Zelda's shoulder. "Hyrule may not be rebuilt in one year or even ten, but we will rebuild it eventually. In the meantime, know that you have the support of all of Hyrule's societies behind you. Our Gerudo soldiers are at your disposal whenever you require them."

"I'm sure I can talk the Boss into sending a group of Gorons down to the Castle," Daruk said enthusiastically, and Revali wondered how Goron leadership had shaken out—how _all_ the societies had dealt with the return of their heirs and leaders. Revali had been a celebrated warrior, but certainly not an Elder, which made things easier in that regard. "Heck, it's probably about time my great-grandson got out to see the world, too. A few of us could have this rubble cleared out in no time!"

"The Zora are eager to help in any way required, as well," Mipha assured her. "Financially, or otherwise. I believe the elder Zora feel ashamed of their unwarranted hatred of Hylians for the past century… they feel as if there is atonement to be made."

"No doubt a few Rito could be spared to aid in communication," Revali said, when it became clear that it was his turn to make an offer. Well, the Elder would surely not be too averse to that. "There are always young fools eager to travel the world who would be glad to stretch their wings."

He tried to ignore the draw increasingly pulling his own eyes towards the distant horizon, another odd new impulse with unknowable origins. Revali had never felt any particular desire to travel beyond his home before, but now it occupied his mind at the strangest times… as if he had the time for any such nonsense.

"Thank you," Zelda murmured, her eyes still glued to the slate. "All of you. I've been put in contact with the owner of a construction company in Hateno Village, so it could be that rebuilding Castle Town is not so far off after all… but my dream is to do more than rebuild. Perhaps there can be no restoring trust in the Guardians after all that happened, but I just know that the technology we've inherited could be used to make life easier for people, and maybe in some small way atone for… for everything." She gave a small, self-deprecating laugh. "But then, perhaps I dream too big. We do not have the people to fill a small village, much less a great city."

"Once word gets out that you are resurrecting Hyrule, you might be surprised who shows up," Urbosa told her, smiling. "While the kingdom itself may have vanished, the ancient name still lives in people's hearts. Dream as big as you wish, little bird, and we will fight to see it happen… but for now, as I said, start small. Build that small village, and we will see what comes of it."

"Link has friends in strange places," Mipha said, almost tentatively. The Zora princess had always been quiet in demeanor, but today she seemed especially reserved, her eyes a thousand miles distant whenever she thought herself unnoticed. "When next he returns, I'm sure he would not mind spreading the word."

"Where _is_ Link?" Revali asked abruptly, still looking out over ruined Castle Town. His absence had been glaring from the start, but the fact that it had aroused no comment seemed stranger still. Surely he could not have wandered too far from his precious princess?

Only when nobody answered did Revali turn around, and realize that he might have stumbled across a touchy subject. His fellow Champions' expressions ranged from confused to worried to disapproving, with Zelda's own face a picture of carefully composed neutrality.

"Link has been busy," she said with stiff formality.

"Link has been running," Urbosa corrected her, and Zelda's eyes flashed.

"He has been very helpful!" she protested. "I am certain it's thanks to him that we no longer have those treasure hunters looting Hyrule Castle. One even sought me out the other day to return what she'd taken and offer her apologies!"

"He did aid in clearing out the castle for quite some time," Mipha pointed out softly, but Urbosa sniffed.

"Yes, but where is he now?"

Zelda had no response. Lost, Revali looked to Daruk, who shrugged.

"Link stopped by Goron City about a week back to return something," the enormous Goron offered, scratching his face. "Told me he'd been out killing monsters. Their camps are still all over the place, you know. I think he thinks he can clear them out of Hyrule single-handedly."

"I'm almost surprised he did not already, given how widely he must have traveled," Revali said dubiously—at least he might have taken care of the infestation outside of the Flight Range, which Revali had ended up dealing with on his own—but Zelda shook her head.

"He did," she said wearily. "Many times. As often as he killed them, Ganon brought them back. No, Urbosa," she added, holding up a hand when Urbosa opened her mouth to comment. "You always put me and my needs first, and though I am grateful for it, the virtue of my birth makes me no more deserving of such consideration than him. Link loves this land as much as the rest of us, but… in a different way, I think. Rebuilding the kingdom of Hyrule is my dream, but I do not believe it is his."

"You're telling me he prefers it like this?" Revali asked skeptically with a pointed glance at the ruined landscape outside. "He must have gone completely savage."

"And why not?" Mipha's sudden forcefulness took them all aback, though the brunt of her glare was all for Revali. "All he remembers of his life before is that he was miserable. Perhaps the Link we all knew is gone…" Her voice echoed with an old heartbreak, and Zelda's hand slipped around Mipha's in a comforting grip, "...but there's something beautiful about it still, isn't there? To know that new life can thrive even after such tragedy? I… I'm sorry, princess," she finished, abashed, though in that split second before turning to Zelda she gave Revali a look he knew too well now. "It _was_ a tragedy, truly. It's just… Link and I talked quite a bit, back on Vah Ruta."

Revali grimaced, swearing to himself that the next person to give him that sad, knowing _look_ would catch the full force of his frustration, but then the full meaning behind that statement caught up to him and he froze. She remembered?

"You're quite alright, Mipha," Zelda said gently. She seemed unsurprised, though Daruk and Urbosa both regarded Mipha with stunned consideration. They hadn't known, either. "The world is not as we remember it, true, but it has recovered remarkably well. I am not proud enough to believe that it will be my actions that save Hyrule when it's clear that its people have already saved themselves, but I do see this as a chance to do better… to start fresh, free of the mistaken traditions and prejudices that plagued us before. That's what we've all been given, isn't it, despite our personal tragedies?" Her eyes drifted across the Champions, settling finally on Revali. "A second chance?"

Revali couldn't push her words out of his head on his long flight home, soaring once more above the moss-covered remnants of dilapidated homes and the long inert shells of ancient Guardians that still seemed more depressing than inspiring, whatever Mipha claimed. He wanted to protest that he'd used his second chance to improve, just as she'd said. He had never been stronger, or faster, and once he had a proper weapon he would push the limits of his archery, too. Whatever the other Champions might have been up to, he doubted that they could say the same… but somehow, he didn't think that was exactly what she meant.

Returning to his sanctuary at the Flight Range just as the sun set, Revali found it already occupied.

Teba looked up warily as Revali settled in for a landing beside him, but the white fledgling seated on his shoulders that could only be his son had eyes only for the errant knight riding the deep canyon's cold updrafts.

"Yeah, Link! Great job!" he cheered, squeezing Teba's neck as his father grunted, and Revali rolled his eyes at the praise, though the greater part of his attention was all on Link. Of course he would be here, floating around as casually as if his whereabouts were not a hotly contested topic. Of _course_ he would.

Considering that he could not actually fly, Revali thought grudgingly that Link's performance was impressive, although nothing close to what Revali himself could do. His loose hair was an obvious irritant, pushed continually into his eyes by the constant updraft until he shook it aside each time in clear frustration, but he handled the complicated process well, aiming in free fall and hitting the lightly glowing targets one after another before catching the wind on his paraglider and rising up to repeat it.

Finally, Link floated back to the slim wooden landing, shrugging his weary shoulders with a clear laugh that blew a cloud of mist out in front of him. Then he caught sight of Revali watching, and froze.

"Nineteen targets!" the little Rito said enthusiastically, checking his small watch. "That's your best yet!"

"Thanks, Tulin," Link said carefully with a nod for them all, unhooking the lightweight Swallow Bow he must have borrowed and slipping past them to the firelit interior to return it. "I'm not the best, though. That honor goes to someone else."

"Yeah?" Tulin said dubiously as Teba lifted him off his shoulders with a grunt, guiding him after Link with a firm pat. "Well, I still think you're great."

"Tell Link goodbye, Tulin," Teba called after him. "We're leaving. I hope we didn't disturb you by coming here, Master Revali," he added in his low, signature rasp. "I heard you would be gone for the day, and when Link stopped by… well, I guess we lost track of the time. Tulin and I used to train here pretty frequently before…"

Before Revali had swooped in and holed himself away like an old hermit, not exactly chasing away visitors but certainly doing nothing to welcome them in. With a shameful twist to his stomach, Revali realized that so far, his revival had likely been nothing more than an inconvenience to those it had affected at all. At least the Flight Range had served a practical purpose.

"Just Revali, please," he said abruptly. "Masterful though my abilities are, I never grew old enough to obtain that title. And… feel free to train here anytime you wish. No apologies required. I…" He felt as stumbletongued as Link, all of a sudden. "I suppose it is past time that I made my home in the village once more."

Revali wasn't entirely sure why he said it. He'd certainly made no plans for such a move. Teba's eyebrows rose, his golden eyes turned thoughtful even as he nodded his thanks.

"Some might say you're more than old enough," he muttered with a wry grin. For a moment, he looked as if he might say something else, but a glance inside the hut changed his mind. "Take your time. It can't have been easy, losing the entire village all at once like you did. We're all willing to give you whatever space you need."

Revali grunted his thanks, unable to think up a response, but thankfully, Teba didn't seem to require one.

"Tulin!" he called again, and the little Rito came running, clambering onto his father's back all while staring wide-eyed at Revali, which resulted in misplaced talons and grunts of pain on Teba's part.

"Link says you're even better with a bow than he is," Tulin told Revali as he climbed up, his high voice half disbelieving. "He says you're the best there ever was."

"Tulin, that's Mast- that's Warrior Revali," Teba explained in a low voice. "Of course he is."

"Ohhhh!" Tulin said, eyes shining in realization. " _You're_ Revali? My dad talks about you all the time!"

"Does he now?" Revali hid a grin. "How very flattering." Teba's tail feathers had gone stiff from embarrassment, and Revali was sure that beneath those white feathers, he was flushing.

"Can you show me, Master Revali?" Tulin begged. "Please?"

"Another time, little one," Revali assured him with a laugh as Teba tried in vain to shush him. "When it's light out. Link is adequate for a Hylian, I suppose, but you deserve to see a true Rito warrior at work."

Teba shot him a grateful look as they left, catching the updrafts to drift into the sky towards Rito Village, and Revali watched them go feeling unaccountably cheerful. Perhaps that bridge was not as thoroughly burned as he'd assumed after Kakariko.

His smile had yet to fade as he walked wearily into his small hut, but Link standing there waiting for him dashed that smile to pieces—or, more specifically, what Link held in his hands.

The Hylian Champion flinched at Revali's stunned horror, but took a deep, wavering breath.

"No point in drawing this out, I guess," he muttered with a nervous half-smile devoid of any humor, offering up the pieces of Revali's Great Eagle Bow with steady hands. In that moment, Revali hated everything about him—his flyaway hair, his Rito-styled outfit as if he somehow belonged here, his blue eyes spilling with pained regret. "I told you before that I had something to return. Maybe now you can see… why it took me so long."

Revali's heart clenched. He had long since given up hope of finding his beloved weapon intact, especially after seeing firsthand the level of destruction wrought by the Calamity, but to think that it had somehow survived all that, only to be destroyed—arguably, along with the rest of the world—as a result of Link's ineptitude… Revali took back every charitable thought he'd ever had about Link and his abilities.

"What did you do?" he hissed, almost spluttering as he stalked forward to snatch the pieces away. Even at a glance he could see that the bow had been well maintained before it broke, its old painted patterns not even peeling, which only made it that much worse. "Did you—who gave you the right to—get out."

Link's whole body stiffened, and he stared at Revali levelly, arms crossed.

"No."

"I said, _get out._ "

Link only looked at him, silent and unmoving, and Revali growled as his fury hit its boiling point. Pushing past Link roughly, Revali tossed the broken pieces against the wall and snatched up the Falcon Bow he'd been modifying, brandishing it at Link.

"Leave now or I'll make you leave," he said, and finally, Link's stubborn expression cracked.

"Would you really?" he asked quietly, his shoulders slumping. "All over a broken bow?"

Revali would not, of course. He hadn't even drawn an arrow, having learned long ago not to aim at anyone unless he meant it. The thought came that he could still whack Link over the head with it like a club, though, and he shifted his grip on the thin wood to smack it angrily against his own fingers.

"What in your failing memories gave you the impression that I would ever let you use my bow?" he snarled. "What made you think I would even let you touch it? How _dare_ y—"

"You did," Link said, and Revali stopped short, scouring Link's face with narrowed eyes for any sign of deception.

"You're lying," he said flatly. Link knew Revali had no way of proving him wrong, and… but Link was shaking his head vigorously.

"I wouldn't. Not about this." He sounded serious, and though Revali still glared at him suspiciously, he eventually motioned for Link to speak. "Elder Kapeli gave it to me for freeing Medoh, but I only used it once, and whether you want to believe me or not, it was with your blessing." Link's hands tightened into fists, apparently without him noticing. "I promised to avenge you with it when I fought Calamity Ganon. Now it turns out there was nothing to avenge. I'm sorry."

Revali frowned sharply, and Link flinched back, though he hadn't meant it for him. Tucked away in the Flight Range without the unfamiliar faces of other Rito to remind him of the passage of time, it was easy to forget that he had ever died, much less that someone might have wanted to avenge him… but surely vengeance at Link's hands was almost worse than none at all.

"You kept the pieces," Revali realized suddenly, lowering his Falcon Bow when he realized he still had it brandished. "Why?"

Link hesitated.

"You... didn't give me much to remember you by," he said, raising a hand to where his hair hung loose over his ears. "I guess that's part of what took me so long to return it, too… I wasn't ready to let go."

"That's ridiculous," Revali said, folding his wings in front of him. "I'm not dead. You don't need anything to _remember_ me by."

Link examined him closely for a minute before surprising Revali with a tentative smile.

"No," he agreed. "No, you're not, are you? I guess I should have realized that sooner. Sorry it took me so long."

Clearing his throat, Revali forced his eyes away. He'd felt the oddest moment of triumph when Link smiled just then, as if it was some form of achievement on his part. Where had all his anger gone off to?

"For what it's worth, I talked to Harth a few days ago," Link said after a moment, gesturing to where the broken bow had fallen. "He thinks he can remake that, with the original pieces to work from."

That explained the look Harth had given him, but raised its own set of questions.

"You've been in the village?"

"For almost a week." Link bit his lip, looking troubled. "They say they don't see you there very often. I'd kind of thought… well, you missed it a lot, back when you were trapped on Medoh."

Revali said nothing.

"I think they'd like to see more of you," Link offered.

"Is there a reason you're still here?" Revali snapped. "You've made your little delivery. Aren't you done?"

"...I guess so." Link tucked at his hair again, a surprisingly expressive gesture Revali was starting to notice that he made most when he was nervous. Standing there in his Rito armor and speaking easily as if he'd done so all his life, Link looked almost like an entirely different person. Only the sword had stayed the same. "I'm leaving Rito Village tomorrow. I still have a few loose ends to tie up before… before I'm really free."

Remembering what Daruk had said, Revali wondered suddenly what he would find now if he visited any of the various monster camps he'd noticed tucked around Tabantha and Hebra that he hadn't gotten around to dealing with yet.

"The princess misses you," Revali said, watching Link closely, which was the only reason he caught Link's wince.

"I know she does," he said woodenly. "That's part of it. After I'm done, though…" His hand was so twisted in his hair now it looked painful, and Revali had a sudden, untraceable thought that he'd seen that before. "If I were to come by sometimes, just for a bit… would you mind?"

"Would I be able to stop you?" Revali asked evasively. He wasn't a fool. There was more to the question than had been asked, even if he couldn't quite comprehend the details yet.

"I hear I can be pretty persistent," Link said with an easy half-smile, though his eyes told the true story. Revali could shatter him so easily right then, if he had the mind to.

For a moment, he considered it… but in the end, he only shrugged.

"Do as you wish," he said dismissively, turning away. "It makes no difference to me." He did not say yes. He very clearly did not say yes.

But he also, very clearly, did not say no.


	5. Kass's Interlude

Posting early for my friend, who I think intends to play smash bros all day tomorrow :D

Fair warning: this update is much shorter than the last chapters. I didn't expect the story to go this long when I set the weekly update schedule, and kind of forgot that this week would be busy preparing to go out of town for the next couple weeks, but I still wanted to give you something and thought this scene might work as a short interlude? Next Friday will be a full-length update, and prooobably the last chapter, but in the meantime, here's some Kass :)

* * *

Revali first heard the music while flying restlessly over Lake Totori late one morning, a faint strain of melody carried on the breeze that he recognized from hours of singing practice as a fledgling, though despite his best efforts he had always struggled to hold a tune. Nostalgia swept over him, and something else—a now-familiar twinge of confusion he'd come to associate with everything he still couldn't remember. It was enough to set a course to his wandering, and he found himself drawn towards Warbler's Nest like a courser bee to honey, settling beside the circle of strange rocks that marked the familiar meadow to listen quietly to the fledglings' song. The tiny Rito children elbowed each other as they noticed him, their high pitched tweets dissolving into whispers and giggles, but when the musician accompanying them continued without faltering, they eventually settled back into the melody, singing on with high, sweet voices that Revali would have envied in his younger years, before his purpose in life had become clear.

The larger Rito playing alongside them seemed at first not to notice his arrival, which suited Revali just fine. Whatever odd impulse had drawn him here, he certainly hadn't come looking for conversation… although he couldn't keep from stealing glances at the colorful stranger sharing his space. Eyes closed, swaying to the music that he coaxed expertly from his accordion as the children sang along in perfect unison, he looked blissfully unaware of the wider world around him. Eventually, though, something made him stir, and his eyes fluttered open as he glanced towards where Revali stood.

"Have we drawn an audience today?" he murmured thoughtfully, apparently to himself. "I wonder who it could… Ahh, Champion Revali, is it not? We meet at last!"

Revali was taken aback by the stranger's sudden change in demeanor, his voice growing deep and resonant the moment he noticed Revali's presence, but the sky blue Rito continued on before he could respond. Puffing out his broad chest, he began to play a new melody, his large fingers moving nimbly across the accordion's keys as the children stopped to listen eagerly.

"'Wind's ally soars the land of cloud. Medoh's Champion, swift and proud,'" he sang in a loud, clear voice. "My teacher wrote a song about you, although he tragically passed on with the work unfinished. I took the liberty of completing the verse, though I wonder now if you would care for it. Perhaps the stories we tell of heroes after their death are not what they would prefer to hear about themselves while they still live."

"Unfortunately, I've found we have little say in how we are remembered," Revali said slowly, a bit flustered at the thought of being the subject of song. His abilities were more than inspiring enough to warrant it, of course, so perhaps he should not be too surprised. "I think I would still enjoy hearing it, assuming it's not too… insulting."

"Insulting?" the Rito repeated, his crest rising in shock. "Not at all! All of the Champions were a great inspiration to my teacher, and continue to inspire me. I've half a mind to travel the world once more to meet them all, though I think my wife would never forgive me for leaving again so soon after returning. Perhaps this time she will travel with me… once our children are older, of course."

He gestured with a wing to the fledglings lined up behind him, and Revali understood.

"All yours, then?" he asked, eyebrows raised. It was quite the brood, even for a Rito.

"All mine," the other Rito confirmed proudly. "This is Notts, Kotts, Kheel, Cree, Genli…" One by one, the little Rito hopped as their name was called, waving a small wing in acknowledgement. "...and I am Kass, a once-traveling minstrel recently returned home, much to my dear wife Amali's relief," he concluded with a smile. "No, to depart again so quickly would be to spit in the face of the sacrifice she made so I could finish my great teacher's work, though I will admit that the wild world sometimes calls to me." He chuckled to himself. "Then again, many times as I traveled, it seemed the greatest call I heard came from home. Perhaps it is written in my nature to be discontent, restlessly searching for something I do not know."

Revali shrugged, uncomfortable with how closely that echoed his own thoughts as of late.

"Much worse to be complacent, I should think," he said, if only for something to say, and was surprised when Kass laughed again, something Revali thought must come to him easily.

"Spoken like a true Champion," he said warmly. "I don't suppose you would be here now had you lived life complacently… though there is time enough for everything, I hope. A time to move, and a time to be still. A time to play along, and sometimes, a time to listen."

At their father's inviting gesture, the fledglings began singing once more, and Revali straightened unconsciously. Although the accordion had added a certain liveliness to the traditional songs he remembered, the simple sound of their voices felt much closer to whatever it was he _didn't_ remember that had drawn him here in the first place. Thinking of how the music had carried across the lake, he wondered how much further it could travel. Maybe all the way to Medoh, if the breeze was just right?

Looking up to where the large stone machine still perched above Rito Village, Revali shivered.

"The entire village heard you call the attack on Ganon from atop Vah Medoh, though I'm told that you do not remember it," Kass said, and Revali returned to himself with a start, noticing Kass following his gaze. "Maybe someday I'll write a song of the event so you may experience that triumph anew. If any moment deserves commemoration through verse, it is that one."

"Do so if you wish," Revali muttered, suddenly weary. That would be his greatest legacy, wouldn't it, despite his best efforts? A battle that he couldn't remember, that he had not even played the main role in. "Personally, I prefer to look to the future rather than get hung up on the past."

"Ah! Of course! How fitting for one such as yourself." Kass's eyes sparkled, and Revali was again taken aback by his enthusiasm. It was as if Kass had approached their conversation with only the intent to discover, and was continually delighted by what he found. Odd though it was, Revali found himself relaxing because of it. "It is true that most stories stop at the battle's end, which paints an incomplete picture of the lauded heroes. What choices do they make when the world is saved, and life continues on?" Absently, he drew a few more notes out of his accordion, a short tune that sounded somehow curious. "Do they settle down, or continue their adventuring? Hone their skills further, or find joy in something new? Does the legendary knight devote the remainder of his years to the princess and people he sacrificed to serve, or does he declare his service done and find rest from his journeys? Only time can tell, I suppose, but I am eager to discover those answers."

Revali's budding good mood shattered. Of course. He should have known their talk would turn that way eventually.

"The legendary knight… that would be Link, I assume?" Revali said, keeping his voice carefully smooth to hide how his pulse inexplicably quickened at the name. "Do you know him?"

"Your fellow Champion? Of course," Kass said, smiling. "It was my teacher's lifelong wish that the songs of the ancient hero be gathered and shared with the princess's appointed knight when he awoke so that he could slay the great beast Ganon alongside her as he did in ages past. I hope that great poet rests easier now, knowing the princess is safe."

"And what was your opinion of her appointed knight?" Revali wasn't sure why he asked. He already had his opinion of Link, and needed no help in forming a new one.

...If he could only keep in mind what that _was_ , maybe he could finally regain his focus, and tame the persistent restlessness that had sent him wandering here in the first place.

"You want my opinion of Link?" Kass asked, tilting his head. "He… well, I think it's fair to say that he was not what I expected. Quite a bit shorter than I had imagined him—but then, so are you." There was no mockery in Kass's voice, so Revali refrained from snapping at him. Barely. "Younger, too. I had heard that he was only just past the princess in age, but it was still a shock to see him so young. Let me think… he was soft spoken, had a gentle way with horses. Distant in some ways, but invariably kind. He was always willing to stay and listen to a song or two, even though I knew better than he knew I did just how much weighed on his shoulders. It's funny," he added thoughtfully. "From the way he looked at me when we first met, you would have thought he'd never seen a Rito before, though I knew that was impossible… but he must have taken a liking to the culture. I don't think I ever saw him after that without his hair done up in those beaded braids. Wherever our travels took us, the sight of it always felt like a breath of home."

Revali's brow furrowed sharply in confusion. He couldn't remember Link ever wearing his hair like that, yet could somehow picture it clearly… only there was something not right about that brief description, a missing detail that still evaded him.

"In fact," Kass added with a laugh as Revali pursued the thought with increasing frustration, "I don't suppose anyone ever told him what it meant among us Rito, but somehow Link found himself a feather, and—" He cut off suddenly, blinking at Revali as though seeing him anew. "And… and he… he…"

"And he…?" Revali prompted after a moment, but Kass seemed well and truly derailed from his anecdote, still staring strangely at him.

"That… hmm. Well then. That… would be unexpected." He cleared his throat. "Forgive me, but I can't help but notice that your feathers are quite a distinct shade of blue. I have not seen its like in the village."

"I… shouldn't think so," Revali said, equal parts flattered and confused. "Even in my time, the color was unique. What of it?"

"...It is nothing." Kass leaned over his accordion as if examining it, though he eyed Revali sideways. "Just an idle thought. You have asked me for my impression of Link, but surely you must have known him better than I. What was your opinion of him?"

"I did not, actually," Revali said, avoiding that probing glance in favor of watching the singing fledglings, wondering again why he had come. Their music did not make him happy so much as wistful, accentuating the increasingly unavoidable void inside him. "I don't know that it was possible to know him. He was silent in my time, with the emotions of a stone wall. To be quite honest, I didn't care for him then."

"Mmm." If Kass was offended on Link's behalf, he didn't show it. "And your opinion of him now?"

Revali thought of Link's bright eyes and clear laugh, and the way the firelight moved across his face.

"I still do not care for him."

Kass started to play again, a harmony that wrapped around the fledglings' song.

"It is such a joy to see my children take to music so well," Kass said over his playing. "It makes me hope that one day I will be able to teach them all the ancient songs I devoted my life to learning. I would hate to see those songs die alongside me after all the effort it took to retrieve them. They might have served their practical purpose in aiding the legendary hero, but there must be some intrinsic value to the music itself, don't you think?"

Revali nodded because he was clearly supposed to agree, and Kass tilted his head in thought.

"Or perhaps I will seek out an apprentice, as my teacher did before me," he mused to himself. "I know one who might be willing, if I asked… but never mind all that. It is said that you were not one to share your feelings, Champion Revali, yet I feel that I know you much better now. I only hope for more than just your sake that you do not conceal those feelings from yourself, as well." With a drawn out note and a flourish, Kass and his children finished their song together. Kass bowed deeply as the fledglings cheered, offering Revali a final, meaningful look. "Thank you for listening to our song. I hope to play again for you soon."

Revali left, perturbed by Kass's departing glance. They had only just met. How could _he_ possibly have gained that knowing look in his eyes? What was so obvious to everyone but himself?


	6. Chapter 6

I lied! One more chapter after this! I guess it makes sense-three to fall in love once, and three (plus an interlude) to do it again :) So so sorry about the wait, by the way. I promise, it was not due to a lack of effort.

* * *

"May I ask how you've been adjusting?" Mipha asked Revali late one afternoon as they wandered the ruins of Castle Town together. The crumbling city was still mostly as he remembered it since he had flown over for the first time a couple weeks back, though he saw the hint of change to come. Efforts were in progress to preserve the most historical parts of old Castle Town—those with anything left to preserve—but for the most part, the only thing worth salvaging was its foundation, which meant the old, rotting buildings had to be cleared away before the new could be built up over them.

"Seamlessly," Revali said, watching a group of Gorons hacking away at the crumbling stone of a fallen archway, heedless of the rocks that crashed against their helmets as they worked.

Mipha gave him a frankly insulting look of doubt.

"Nobody would think less of you for struggling," she told him, and he sniffed sharply through his beak. Nobody would think more of him, either. "One hundred years is a long time. I think we have all had our difficulties. Then again," she added with a smile, "I'm sure the Rito are overjoyed to have their Champion back."

"Of course they are. Did you expect anything less?"

Revali watched her out of the corner of his eye as they walked, his hands clasped behind his back. Otherwise, he might have been fidgeting out of his mind from being forced to walk so slowly after weeks of near constant flight. He had thought there was the hint of a thaw between himself and the rest of the village… some of them, at least. Then again, not even Teba had taken him up on his offer to train at the Flight Range. Maybe it was too intimidating to try to shoot a bow where a legend might be watching.

"Having certain things explained to me might make it easier, I suppose," he said at last. "I think if I could only remember what happened, I could stop being so preoccupied by its… effects." That didn't seem like too much of an admission, although he did not intend to share the full extent of those _effects_ with anyone. "But then, the princess seems to think we are better off without."

"The princess is wrong," Mipha said, so firmly that Revali raised an eyebrow. "I do not blame her for wishing in some small way to erase what happened, but removing the memory of a wound does not take away its pain. If anything, it is more difficult to heal when the source cannot be found. Of course," she added, her expression turned far away as she looked past him. "I would not minimize the pain of bearing such memories, either."

Revali followed her gaze to where Zelda stood, deep in heated discussion with an older Hylian man wearing a workman's vest and baggy pink trousers. Pushing her hair behind her ears and gesturing emphatically at something on her ever-handy Sheikah Slate, from this distance she looked much as he remembered her—her properly reserved demeanor turned fiery in pursuit of her passion, though never any less precise. Only when he looked closer did he see the deep set exhaustion lining her round, green eyes that she simply couldn't hide—the same exhaustion that he saw in Mipha's.

"Zelda is the only person living who saw and remembers everything, from the Calamity's beginning to its end," Mipha said softly. "I certainly do not envy her that."

"How much do you remember?" Revali asked, hoping the question would come across as idle curiosity, though he thought he might have failed. Shaking her head as she returned to herself, Mipha eyed him appraisingly.

"Is that why you're really here?" she said at last. "You were never one for unplanned social visits."

Revali frowned.

"I didn't know I needed an invitation," he huffed, wishing she was just a little less insightful. His initial plan had been to shake down the princess for answers—metaphorically, of course—but Mipha's unexpected presence had provided a fortunate alternative… or so he had thought. "Is it such a strange question? You're the only one of us who remembers anything, as far as I'm aware. I only wondered at the extent of your… recovery."

The truth was, Revali's restlessness had finally reached its breaking point. Progress at the Flight Range had reduced to almost nothing, and though Revali told himself there must be unavoidable mortal limits to what anyone could attain, he knew that his focus had been fractured, scattered to the winds since the night Link returned with his bow. Maybe all he needed was a chance to settle the score between them, to decide once and for all which of them was superior… except his Great Eagle Bow was still not ready, and Link had vanished into the wilds, and the thought of a determining duel between them was no longer as enticing as—

"I am not the only one," Mipha said, and Revali's frustrated thoughts came to an unexpected halt. "Both Daruk and Urbosa have remembered bits and pieces, as well. I assumed that you pulled me away because you were experiencing the same." She paused. "I suppose that's… not the case?"

For once, Revali didn't know what to say. Failure was hardly unfamiliar to him—it had taken a thousand small failures before he had perfected his Gale—but neither was he accustomed to coming last in anything.

"You remembered first, though," he muttered eventually, and Mipha nodded. "More than they do?"

"I believe so," she said, then hesitated. "Though really, it's not quite as clear cut as that. Time… lost its meaning after a while, even after Link freed me from Ganon's grasp, and I think I have more than either of them to remember. It's quite possible that some of those days and conversations on Vah Ruta remain out of reach… but I remember enough."

"Oh."

In the distance, Revali could see a woman approaching Castle Town, her hand shading her face as she peered up towards them. One more person to join Zelda's ever expanding camp of Hylians ready to start a new life. Word was spreading… and Revali was avoiding the topic at hand, he realized with disgust. The worst part was, he had no way of pinpointing the cause of this unforeseen shortcoming. He wanted his memories back as much as any of them, didn't he? ...Or did he?

"I do not believe it was due to any personal strength on my part that I remembered so soon," Mipha offered when he remained stony faced, as if she could ease the sting of his failure. "My brother wanted so dearly for me to recover our time together that I did everything in my power to do so. I might have avoided boarding Ruta again for… for much longer, otherwise." She stopped, and looked at him thoughtfully. "Revali, how much time have you spent on Vah Medoh since we returned?"

Revali felt himself go rigid even as he forced out a laugh.

"You speak as if you think I've been avoiding it. Medoh is fine where it is. There has not been any need to—" Revali's clumsy blustering withered under the weight of her flat stare, and after another moment he shook his head ruefully. Perhaps there was no pretending in front of another Champion. "Are you saying it was that easy? You entered Vah Ruta, and… remembered?"

"Not quite," Mipha said gently. "Speaking to Sidon helped as well, I think because we talked together so frequently, but Ruta is where the memories were formed." Without seeming to notice, her eyes turned to the east, towards her distant Divine Beast. "Maybe it's silly, but I almost feel as if Ruta held on to those moments for me in my absence, perhaps to make up in some small way for what happened… not that it was their fault, of course."

Revali scowled fiercely. From where he stood, he could just make out the tip of his own Divine Beast's wing, too far for him to feel the insistent press of Medoh on his mind that came whenever he strayed too close. The thought of answering that call made his feathers twitch with the desire to fly almost anywhere else, as if returning to that peak meant clipping his own wings… but from Mipha's words, he thought that experience was not his alone. Why could he not bring himself to do what every other Champion must have already done, if Mipha's theory held true?

"Perhaps…" Mipha's hands clasped together as she bit her lip in worry. "Perhaps speaking to Link could help you in a similar way. Has he really not talked to you at all?"

"Did I speak to him often enough for that?" Revali asked, and sighed resentfully when Mipha's lips tightened. "He has told me almost nothing, and even if I wanted his help, I would have to find him first. You've likely seen him more than I have."

A lizard burst from the grass beneath him, and Revali watched it scurry away. It seemed the wildlife had grown plentiful where the Hylians were not.

"Link has visited Zora's Domain only once," Mipha said softly, coming to a halt, and Revali stopped alongside her. "He returned my trident weeks ago, and hasn't been back since."

"Ah." So there had been nothing personal about Link using Revali's weapon in particular. That shouldn't have been a disgruntling thought. "I'm… sorry. I'm sure if you give it some time, things might still work out between you."

Mipha looked at him in surprise, and Revali cleared his throat irritably. Just because he was ill-suited for providing comfort didn't mean he couldn't try.

"Oh, Revali," she said, looking as if she wanted to say something else, though in the end she only shook her head. "I'm sorry I cannot tell you more of what happened. I know it must seem cruel, but some things shouldn't come from me."

Before Revali could ask her exactly what she meant by that, they were interrupted.

"Excuse me!" The approaching Hylian had come close enough to call out now, jogging the final distance towards them. She looked like a seasoned traveler if the sword and shield strapped to her back were any indication, although as she got closer she appeared to lose some of her nerve. "I'm… I'm looking for… Princess Zelda? Is she here?"

"Right over there," Revali said, motioning with a wing, and the woman's breath caught as she followed his gesture.

"So it's true," she said, her eyes shining with wonder. "I mean, I wouldn't have come here if I hadn't believed there was a chance… but still, I almost thought…"

"What is your name?" Mipha asked kindly, and the woman straightened, gathering herself.

"My name is Celessa. For months now, I've been on a pilgrimage to retrace Princess Zelda's footsteps. I just… never imagined it would end with the chance to actually meet her." Her eyes widened in sudden panic, and she stepped back. "What am I going to say?"

"I can introduce you, if you'd like," Mipha offered, sharing an amused look with Revali as he tried to imagine what Zelda might think of her life inspiring pilgrims. Maybe they had all become legends. "I think she will want to meet you. Revali, it's getting late. Shouldn't you be leaving soon?"

"I'll accompany you," he said, though with a reluctant glance at the sinking sun. The sky would be dark before long. "I should say my goodbyes to the princess, at least—and we aren't finished talking."

"I've told you what I can," Mipha said, and though her voice was as gentle as ever, it held an unyielding firmness. Well, he supposed she couldn't be a Champion and perspective leader of her people if she was as soft as she sometimes seemed. "The princess may be busy for some time, and… you don't want to be caught out after dark."

Revali jerked at that, looking at her intently. He couldn't possibly have been so transparent… but then her own eyes slid to the falling sun with a shiver, and he realized that the new weight of darkness was not his own personal flaw. Mipha felt it, too.

"Celessa," he said abruptly, and she jumped. "Who was it that directed you here?"

Mipha's knowing look slid right off him, too familiar now to matter. He had asked the same of every new arrival—the dark-skinned boy eager to avoid a life of fishing, the rotund man who claimed a deep appreciation of beauty, and the pair of girls with an unhealthy attachment to truffles. The answer never varied.

"A traveler named Link," Celessa said, confirming what he already knew. "He told everyone at the stable that Princess Zelda had defeated the darkness surrounding Hyrule Castle, and needed help restoring the kingdom of Hyrule. It honestly sounded kind of crazy, but..." She shrugged. "Here I am."

"It is a rather fantastic tale, coming from just anyone," Revali agreed idly. "You must know him quite well to have believed him."

"Not… really." She hesitated. "We passed each other on the road a few times, and he saved me once when I got in over my head with some monsters. I guess I don't know much else about him, but he always had this reliable, steady vibe going for him, so—" She cut off in realization, her eyes going wide. "Wait a second. Link… and did you say your name was Revali?"

So she knew her history, at least. Few people did these days.

"You're right, Mipha," he said, and saw Celessa give another jerk of recognition. "It's time to be gone. Please advise her highness that you bear the blame for my rudely abrupt departure."

"It was good to see you too, Revali," Mipha called up as he ascended with a flap of his wings. "Really, it was. Fly home safely!"

Revali gave her an acknowledging gesture, though inwardly he scoffed. It had clearly been _such_ a pleasure that she was practically pushing him away. Perhaps it was too difficult to speak to someone from whom you were keeping a secret… though she had offered a solution, of sorts. An impossible solution for an unbearable, gaping void.

Flying across the overgrown landscape with Medoh's outstretched wings looming larger in his sights, Revali waged war within himself. Now that he had a compelling reason to return, it was impossible to ignore how the very thought of stepping inside Medoh again made him shake, his heart pumping faster than the exertion of flight could account for… but why should he want to go there at all? Mipha seemed no happier for all her knowledge, whatever she said. All he could figure that he was missing was years of captivity, a battle that no longer mattered—and something to do with Link.

It was only as Revali reached the village and looked soberly up at Medoh's towering form that all his pretense fell away, leaving him feeling limp and disheartened. He couldn't avoid his Divine Beast indefinitely, not even if Zelda was right—not when such inaction reeked of cowardice. However, he knew with equal certainty that he could not face it tonight. Not yet.

"I'm sorry, Medoh," Revali said, hanging his head. "I promise I'll be there soon. Can you wait for me?"

Wheeling around, Revali started to fly off—and jerked back with a jolt of shock as Medoh cried out, turning to stare with his throat tight. He hadn't expected any response from the Divine Beast, much less understanding.

That night he had a dream that felt more like a memory, of rising through the sky with his Gale… and Link, rising alongside him. He thought it should have bothered him, but it didn't.

* * *

The next few days were spent in fruitless wavering, with Revali determined one minute to face head on everything he'd been avoiding, only to convince himself in the next instant that he was content the way he was. The result was that he sulked moodily around the Flight Range and accomplished nothing, which only soured his mood further. Nights were especially tormenting, with sleep refusing to come until the early hours of morning even with a fire raging beside him. Though he couldn't admit it even to himself, Revali had started to hope for some outside force to come along and shake things up, shifting the uneasy balance he'd inadvertently reached… but when change finally came, it was not in any way he expected.

Revali's first, hazy thought as he awoke one morning to the sweet aroma of roasting nuts was that somebody in the village would be eating well that morning. Then he remembered that he no longer lived in the village, and his eyes snapped open. Shifting himself slowly up to sitting, Revali peered over the edge of his hammock, and stared. The fire he'd left to burn out overnight had been rekindled, with Revali's cookpot set on top. Link was crouched beside it, humming a bit to himself as he sprinkled the top of a small cake with toasted acorns and set a lid over the pot for it to set. Nutcake, unless he was mistaken—an old Rito recipe, and one of Revali's favorites.

He watched for a moment longer, half expecting the unlikely scene to fade from view and prove itself just another dream. Link was off in the wilds somewhere, not here at his cookpot making—

"Are you finally awake?" Link asked, glancing up at him in amusement, and Revali nearly upended himself from flailing, feathers puffing out in agitation.

"What do you mean, 'finally?' It's…" A glance out the window revealed that after hours of tossing and turning, he had ended up sleeping in. "...Plenty early," he finished lamely, though he quickly rallied. That was not the main issue. "What are you doing here? Do you make a habit of barging into people's homes while they're sleeping?"

If anything, Link's quiet smile grew, along with Revali's outrage.

"You'd be surprised how many social conventions go out the window when you forget everything," he remarked, peeking beneath the cookpot's lid. "This wouldn't be my first time. Anyway, you told me that I could come back to visit."

"Yes, but…" Revali could not understand why he felt so flustered. Link was the one intruding, not him, yet the uncouth barbarian looked perfectly at ease. "No part of that invitation should have indicated that you could come in while I was sleeping and cook yourself a meal!"

"This isn't for me. It's for you." Satisfied that the cake had set, Link lifted the lid, and the renewed scent wafting towards Revali made it suddenly hard to remember why he had objected so strenuously to Link's presence in the first place.

"…For me?"

"As an apology," he said, grabbing a knife from the cooking kit Revali kept nearby and scraping carefully along the edge of the pan before lifting the entire cake up and out onto one of Revali's plates. He really had made himself right at home. "Partly for breaking your bow, but mostly for keeping it from you for so long. I should have returned the pieces sooner."

"You really should have," Revali muttered, though proper anger seemed curiously out of reach now, especially as Link finished it with a dollop of cream he must have whipped up as the cake cooked. After weeks of eating only what he could hunt or gather, it looked like a delicacy. "You could have cooked this elsewhere and brought it to me later, you know."

"And served it to you cold?" Link said, the wrinkle in his nose suggesting what he thought of that. "Are you going to come down to eat it or do I have to climb up there and feed you?"

Something in his tone made Revali think that he actually meant that, but still he hung back warily. Despite Link's apparent sincerity—or maybe because of it—this whole odd scenario felt like a trap. However, another glance at the plate in Link's hands made him reluctantly admit defeat. Better to get this over with now and have Link out of his feathers all the sooner.

"Fine," Revali relented, dropping gracefully to his feet. He felt almost naked without his full Rito armor on and his braids desperately needed redoing, but he refused to show discomfort as he took the offered plate. "I suppose this means you're finished with… whatever it is you've been doing?"

"I am." Link settled on one of the room's many cushions as Revali did the same, looking far too at ease for Revali's liking. There was something different about him now that Revali couldn't quite pinpoint, something other than the snowquill armor he'd worn to keep out the chill, but Revali was immediately distracted when he took his first bite and discovered to his dismay that the cake actually tasted as good as it smelled. Deliberately, he kept his face smooth.

"And that would be?"

"Every monster of Ganon's that I ever killed before is dead again," Link said flatly, and Revali paused with a bite halfway to his mouth. He remembered Zelda saying something about the monsters returning to life as Link fought them, but he hadn't thought that she meant it so literally, as if death was some permeable state. Then again, didn't he already know that it was?

"It took you that long?" he asked, not actually intending to offend, though Link scowled as if he had.

"There were a lot of them, and I didn't have the Sheikah Slate, or your… other advantages. I had to take it all by horse or on foot." His leg shook up and down as he sat, and Revali had the feeling that Link felt the same discomfort staying in one place as Revali did each time he landed. "It wasn't all of the monsters left in Hyrule, but I think it's enough for now… right?"

"If you think it is," he said with a shrug, pausing to take another bite. The part of his mind constantly making comparisons suggested that Revali might have done something similar rather than devoting his time to increasingly pointless training, and he hunched his shoulders irritably. "I'm sure the princess will be happy to have you back."

Link stared into the fire, the warm flames orange and flickering across his face.

"I'm not going back," he said abruptly, and Revali gave a start, realizing that he'd been staring. Then what Link had said sunk in, and he stared again.

"What?"

"I told Zelda a couple days ago. I'm… resigning as her knight." He laughed, though it came out hollow. "Not that I've been much of one recently."

They must have just missed each other, Revali thought, chasing a crumb around his plate, and wondered if Mipha had still been there to see him.

"How did she take it?" he asked.

"Zelda…" Link's hands twitched, looking as if he wished he had something to occupy them, though he settled for running them through his hair. "…gave me her blessing, actually. I think if anyone understands, she does."

"I see."

Revali did not see. For all the time Revali had known him, Link had been almost inseparable from the princess… though that had obviously not been the case the past few weeks.

"Where are you going next, then?" he asked eventually, and Link's gaze turned introspective.

"I don't know," he said, shifting in his seat. "A friend made me an unexpected offer the other day. It's nothing I ever saw myself doing, but… maybe I'll take it."

"Hmph." Revali refused to give him the satisfaction of pressing for details. "Well, good luck with it all."

"Thanks," Link said, looking surprised, and Revali scowled. Did everybody have to look at him like that whenever he said something even mildly pleasant? "You know, I was worried that I didn't have that recipe down just yet, but from the look of things, it must have been okay."

"What are you—" Looking down, Revali realized that he had devoured the whole cake, even down to the crumbs. "…It was okay."

"Good," Link said, his mouth quirked upward in a terribly suppressed grin as he got to his feet. "I guess that makes us even, then."

Revali's reaction was immediate.

"Excuse me?" he spluttered, standing as well. "One meager breakfast far from atones for _destroying_ a weapon of that caliber, I'll have you know."

"Oh?" Link said, taking his empty plate from him. "How many meager breakfasts would it take?"

If Revali had been paying closer attention, he would have thought twice about what he said next. Instead, he only laughed.

"I don't think you can measure such debts in meals," he scoffed. "I doubt that even a week would be sufficient."

"Huh," was all Link said, turning away, and that was when Revali saw it… or rather, didn't see it.

"The sword that seals the darkness," he blurted out, and Link stopped short. "It's gone."

More than just the sword was gone, he realized as Link glanced back at him, though the other changes were more subtle. A sort of tension that Revali had always just assumed was a part of Link had seeped away in its absence, leaving him… not relaxed, exactly, but different. He wondered if he even knew the man standing across from him now. Link met his surprised gaze solemnly for a moment, then abruptly grinned.

"I told you, it's over," he said, the relief in his voice mirroring that of Zelda's when she'd said those words in Kakariko all those weeks ago. "You never liked that sword, anyway."

It was true, Revali thought, though he had to wonder at Link's certainty.

In retrospect, he should not have been surprised to find Link there the next morning too, spooning fresh wildberries over crepes.

"Link…" he said warningly from his cot above, and Link looked up at him with round blue eyes.

"You said at least a week. Am I wrong?"

Revali examined him narrowly. It occurred to him that Link might have goaded him into saying that, but why would he want to be here so early, in the freezing cold, cooking Revali breakfast?

"...Rito rarely eat such sweet food in the morning," he said at last, sighing when Link nodded thoughtfully. Whatever he was up to, Revali could put up with it for a week.

Later, when he was treated to a filet of salmon as tender and flaky as any he'd ever eaten, Revali had the fleeting thought that he could put up with it forever, but he trampled that thought firmly, weighing it down with a rock and tossing it in the lake for good measure. Link would be on his way soon enough, which meant that life would return to the way it had been, just as Revali… preferred it.

* * *

There was not one single, discrete thing that Link did that week to upend Revali's life, or at least not that Revali could tell. Despite Mipha's hopes, the short conversations they shared did not awaken any memories. Link did start cooking for himself as well, once Revali complained about being stared at as he ate, and Revali would watch with reluctant interest as Link threw together the mushroom-filled omelets he favored, flipping them in the pan with as much easy confidence as he'd ever had wielding a sword.

"Where did you learn to cook?" he asked one morning as Link slid his finished omelet carefully onto a plate. Revali could cook for himself well enough and had done so all his life, but he'd never taken any particular pleasure from the process as Link seemed to. Cutting a piece of egg off with a fork, Link blew on it absently as he considered the question.

"A lot of places," he said at last. "Some of it from books, some from people on the road. There's always someone cooking at the stables who will show you how, and every town has its own style of doing things. I guess when you're cooking for yourself all the time, you pick it up eventually."

"Not every traveler ends up a chef," Revali countered skeptically, and Link shrugged.

"I like to eat," he said simply. Revali snorted. As if he hadn't already seen the way Link inhaled food. After a bit of a pause, Link added, "It's… nice sometimes to think that I'm good at something because I want to be, not because I had to be."

"You're under the impression that you're good, then?" Revali said, more out of habit than anything. Unimpressed, Link gestured at his mouth, and he flushed beneath his feathers, brushing aside the bit of salmon sticking out of his beak. The unbearable satisfaction on Link's face brought a wicked idea to his mind, and Revali made his voice cold and disapproving. "Either way, for someone _so_ well traveled you have some nerve, cooking _eggs_ in front of a _Rito."_

With his fork still halfway to his mouth, Link stopped short, his eyes widening in slow realization as they flicked between Revali's stern expression and the eggs he had cooked. Dropping his utensil against the wooden plate with a clatter, he began to splutter.

"You know these aren't—I didn't think—you should have said earlier—"

Revali kept it up for as long as he could, but couldn't stop the laughter that finally came bursting out of him. Link's frantic excuses fell away as Revali cackled over his plate, and he glared at him, looking as if he might throw his fork. In the end, though, he laughed too, shaking his head ruefully as he stabbed into his eggs once more, and Revali returned to his own meal with a surge of triumph that he didn't think to question.

Later, as Link glided away from the Flight Range, Revali felt a brief pang of disappointment watching him leave, and that more than anything convinced him that something needed to change. If even Link's company was preferable to eating alone, he must be more desperate than he'd ever thought.

The problem was knowing where to begin.

Revali had been to Rito Village since his return to life, of course, though as his talons settled on the Rito crest that marked the village's main landing and he breathed in the scent of sun-warmed pine and feathers, the old familiarity struck him in a way that he couldn't shake off. The steady clicking of windmills and chirping of insects, the creak of old wood and the way the feathered tassels hanging over windows and doorways fluttered and shook in the breeze… every small piece of life he'd ever brushed aside during his focused excursions held greater weight now as he gave them heed. Feeling unexpectedly solemn, Revali walked forward, pausing to examine an unfamiliar sign pointing past him towards the platform where he'd arrived. Revali's Landing… now that was new.

Unsure where he meant to go exactly, Revali walked the wooden path up and around, nodding vacantly at the surprised greeting a rosy-hued woman gave him on her way down. The Rito were not a private tribe by nature, or at least not in the way they built their homes: cozy and distinct, yet clustered together, open to the air without any of those walls or doors that Hylians slapped on every building to keep out curious eyes and wandering feet. The wind and sky were more important than solitude, and if Revali sometimes thought he valued the latter more than most Rito, he could still appreciate the easy feeling of community with such an arrangement. There was a certain closeness that came from a lifetime of watching your neighbors seated for meals around their fire each night, or rolling out of their hammocks in the morning with their braids in disarray, or frantically trying to shush fledglings that whispered and giggled too late into the night.

He could still pick out who should have been in the dwellings that clung to the rock spire that held up Rito Village—or at least, in those he recognized. Some homes had been rebuilt, while others were missing entirely, and he thought with a sinking apprehension that the most likely reason for that was perched above the village, its cannon still pointing towards Hyrule Castle… but sections of the village had remained untouched, and those were now filled with strangers. Gone was old Faroh, who had dominated the archery competitions years before Revali did and taught him how to hold a bow, and canary-yellow Rima, who had sang as she cooked, her fallen husband's deep violet feather striking against her golden braid, and—

"Are you okay, Champion?"

Revali stopped, and turned. The woman he had brushed past earlier was looking up at him with concern, her looped braids swaying beside her face in the gentle breeze. His eyes flicked towards them out of habit before he remembered that he would not know the Rito who had woven in their feather… but to his surprise, he recognized the white feather with its charcoal tip. Vaguely, the memory resurfaced of Teba's white braids wound through with pale lavender, the soft color out of place against his stern face, and he realized that this must be Teba's wife.

"Can I help you find something?" she offered after a moment when he said nothing. "You look lost."

"I'm..." Revali's voice caught on the word "fine," and he cleared his throat. Many nights as he sat by his fire, he had wondered at the fact that he could lose an entire village of people and feel nothing but numb. Maybe he had never confided much in anyone, but there should have been at least one Rito among those lost whose death could move him to tears. Now, as his eyes stung despite his best efforts at restraint, he thought that maybe his grief had only been waiting for him to return, and remember.

Teba's wife waited patiently him to respond, the concern in her eyes growing.

"I'm fine," Revali said at last, when he thought he could trust his voice. "The village is just… different from how it once was. I'm certain I can find my way around again, given… given time."

"If you're sure…" Rather than moving on as Revali halfway wished she would, she turned to face him more fully. "My name is Saki, by the way. My husband Teba talks of you often." Her voice gave no indication of what her husband said. "Rumor has it that you intend to live with us in the village once more. Is it true?"

Revali blinked, having forgotten until just that moment his hastily uttered words to Teba. Given how word had always spread through Rito Village, likely everyone else had heard it, too. Opening his mouth to say that he had made no plans for it yet, Revali was distracted by a quiet voice coming from the home nearest where they stood. An emerald-plumed Rito stood cooking salmon over a fire, singing absently to herself as she flipped each filet of floured fish into her pan. The fine feathers that made up her hair were yellow, as Rima's had been, and there was a similarity in the shape of their beaks that made him wonder...

"Salmon meunière!" shrieked a tiny voice, and Revali looked down at his feet in surprise, shuffling to the side as five familiar fledglings came hopping past him down the stairs. Each of Kass's children offered a shrill, "Hi Mr. Revali!" as they passed, except for the youngest, who had eyes only for the salmon. The emerald woman straightened, peering out the window and waving at her children's approach, though her eyes lingered thoughtfully on Revali.

"That's why I'm here," he said abruptly, and felt something cold and hard inside him start to thaw. "If there's room for me, that is."

Saki's soft face softened further into a smile that Revali didn't understand, but couldn't bring himself to push away.

"There's always room for more," she promised him, holding out a wing in a welcoming gesture. "Why don't we go talk to the Elder about it? I'm sure the village can do our part getting you settled in… and maybe tonight, you can join my family at our fire for dinner?"

It was an offer he could not possibly turn down.

His return to Rito Village came with surprisingly little fanfare, though the greater surprise was that he preferred it that way. He hung his hammock there that night, taking a home nestled just beside the landing that now bore his name, and fell asleep to the soft thrum of windmills and the strains of a distant accordion, the darkness of night far less heavy on his back than he'd grown accustomed to.

The next morning, Revali awoke to the sound and smell of Link cooking a salmon omelet, and fell back against his hammock with a sigh, scrubbing at his eyes. No secrets in Rito Village, as always.

* * *

...Or perhaps there was _one_ secret in Rito Village.

Maybe it was moving in among the Rito that finally wore away at his once insurmountable separation, or maybe that feeling had always been more self imposed than he'd realized. Either way, Rito that had previously avoided Revali out of awe or fear of disturbing him began to tentatively approach him for conversation. Compliments on his dark blue feathers were common, almost unusually so. It might not have raised his eyebrows—Revali had always admired his own deep, dignified navy hue—but there was something about the way they said it, with barely concealed grins and meaningful looks at each other. Revali was used to the feeling that there was something he didn't know, but only now did he start to consider that he was at the center of a conspiracy. The only secret Rito Village had ever managed to keep, and they were keeping it from him.

For all of that, Revali didn't feel unwelcome. He still went daily to the Flight Range to train, where for the first time he began to attract a bit of an audience, an odd mix of the young and the curious that he didn't mind indulging with the occasional spectacle. In the evenings, he couldn't walk up the village's winding path without rejecting five offers to share a meal because he had already accepted a sixth. Revali felt almost like a newly carved toy passed eagerly from fire to fire, and if he sometimes lost himself in solemn thought without noticing it, or mentioned people or places that only he would know, at least most people had the grace not to mention it. After so much time spent in solitude, he thought he could handle the balance falling the other way for a little while… and truth be told, he had always enjoyed a bit of attention.

If only conversation didn't tend so often toward a certain Hylian knight.

"So tell me," Kass's wife asked conspiratorially, almost a week from the day that Revali first awoke to find Link crouched over his fire. "How is the Hylian Champion in the kitchen?"

Kass's home with his five children was lively and full of music, and Amali was an excellent cook, and even though Revali could not imagine living in such barely contained chaos, they seemed perfectly content with it all. Revali didn't mind joining in, either… for a night, at least.

"He is not as good as he thinks he is," Revali said haughtily, and Amali's eyebrows rose. She was not the first to ask about Link, which Revali realized made an unfortunate amount of sense: he was the only acquaintance they all had in common, after all, and a frequent visitor to Revali's home now, even if the arrangement was only temporary. Fortunately for his budding relationship with the village, all of which held a favorable impression of the knight, Revali thought he managed to hide his dislike for Link quite well. Sometimes, he buried his animosity so deeply that he almost forgot it himself.

"Really?" she murmured as Kass chuckled beside her. "I thought I taught him better than that."

"Speaking of which, I finally have myself an apprentice," Kass said with satisfaction while Revali was still considering the implications of her words, and Amali's eyes lit up.

"He agreed to it, then?" she asked, and Kass nodded.

"I will have to gather my old teacher's instruments together and see what he takes to. He does have a natural ear for music, even if he's a good deal more reserved than I expected." Kass's smile broadened. "He doubts me, but I think I'll have him singing before he knows it."

"You'll still sing with us, though, right?" one of his daughters—Kheel, maybe—asked anxiously, and Kass laughed.

"Of course," he promised, sweeping her up. "We can all sing together!"

Revali was only half listening.

"You taught Link how to cook?" he asked Amali, who gave a trilling laugh.

"Oh, heavens no! I won't take credit for that if he's as bad as you claim. I used to let him use my cookpot, though, and he came to me about a week ago asking to learn some Rito recipes. I had the feeling that there was someone he wanted to impress." She sent him a sideways smile. "Revali, I don't know if anyone's ever told you that your feathers are the most beautiful shade of blue?"

He nodded wearily, missing the secret look she and her husband exchanged.

"The cake was not so bad," he muttered, staring at his plate. No point in insulting Amali's teaching skills.

The final meal between Link and Revali was quiet on both ends, Revali doing his braids up thoughtfully as Link scrubbed at the last of the dishes. Link's gaze always felt particularly intense when he did them each morning, his eyes following the interweaving motions of Revali's feathery fingers with undisguised fascination.

"It is not so hard to do," Revali told him, pausing to gesture towards his own half-finished braids, but Link shook his head.

"I've tried," he said. "I can never get them to look right."

"Even a fledgling can braid their own feathers," Revali said, rolling his eyes. "Didn't you wear your hair in braids before?"

A wooden plate slipped through Link's fingers.

"How did you…"

"Kass told me," Revali said shortly, and after a moment Link nodded, bending to retrieve the fallen dish.

"I did, but… I don't know." Link looked back down, concentrating on the basin in front of him. "Mine never turn out as good as yours."

"Naturally," Revali sniffed, and Link breathed out a laugh. He almost considered offering to do Link's for him if he cared so much about appearances, something Revali would not have guessed of him considering the nest his hair usually was, but he thought better of it, finishing off his own braid with a wooden bead that clattered against the rest as it fell.

"Well," Link said, shaking his hands dry once he finished and not quite meeting Revali's eyes. "Are we even?"

Revali considered him, wondering what Link would say if he told him they were not. He halfway thought Link was hoping for exactly that, even if he didn't know why.

"Listen," he said at last. "I… _may_ have… overreacted that night when you returned my bow." He had to dredge the admission out of himself. It still fell just short of an apology, but for the moment it was all he could manage, and Link stared as if even that much was unexpected. "I don't think you would have handled it carelessly."

"I wouldn't have," Link agreed. The fire had not been put out yet, the light of it playing across Link's face, and Revali couldn't stop himself.

"How often did you come up to Vah Medoh?" he asked bluntly, and saw Link tense.

"A lot," he admitted eventually. "Less at first. More often near the end."

"Did you cook up there?"

"Of course not." Link's brow furrowed. "I wouldn't cook in front of you when you couldn't eat."

"But there was a fire," Revali persisted. Link's breath caught.

"...Yes," he said, the suppressed hope in his voice almost painful to hear, and Revali nodded. That was one explanation taken care of, with over a hundred riddles still left unsolved.

"What are you so afraid to tell me?" he asked, suddenly weary of it all. "I never took you for a coward."

Link's eyes flashed.

"I'm not—" he started to say hotly, then stopped, taking a deep breath. "Fine. Maybe I am. But you tell me what you would have said if I told you right when you first woke up that we became friends after you died? If I didn't let you decide it for yourself then I was worried you would never give me the chance to convince you otherwise."

"Is that what we were, then? Friends?" Revali asked, and Link stared at him for a long moment before his shoulders slumped in defeat.

"Yeah," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "Yeah, we were friends." Somehow, he didn't sound happy about it.

"I suppose… I could accept that," Revali said cautiously, and saw Link perk up the slightest bit, hope flickering back to life in his eyes. It almost fit with everything he had pieced together, though he still had the feeling that he was missing something. That meant Link still felt he had something to lose, something he thought might scare Revali off.

"Can I ask for a favor?" Link said abruptly, gaining heart when Revali did not immediately rebuff him. "I don't know if this sounds weird, but I still haven't seen… do you think you'd mind…" He made an upwards sweeping gesture with his hand. "Could you maybe show me your Gale?"

That strange hope burning in Link's eyes moved through him in funny ways, making his heart beat faster.

"Surely you did not forget my Gale," he scoffed, trying to cover it. What was wrong with him? "With whatever dull memories your old life must have held, that should have been the last to leave you."

"What if I did forget, though?" To Revali's surprise, Link's voice had taken on a light, teasing tone, and he cocked his head. "Could you really stand it if I had?"

Revali wanted to scowl at his words, but found himself smirking instead.

"You might regret it once you realize what a flightless, talentless individual you are." Well, he had no reason not to show him. The request was flattering, to be honest, especially when Link had been so utterly unreactive the first time he'd seen it.

Vaulting onto his home's small, outward facing platform, Revali concentrated, gathering the strongest winds as quickly as he could muster them before taking off with the force of an arrow, piercing the eye of the whirlwind he formed and letting the rushing torrents hasten his ascent. Distantly, he saw Link running out onto the main landing to watch, but his mind was caught up in flight now, in the powerful wind that rustled his feathers, moving as he directed it. Soon enough, that power ebbed, waning as Revali reached the peak of his ascent, hovered… and started to fall, spiraling down as he picked up speed. Revali swung his legs around just in time to land beside Link again, only to launch himself upward once more with another gust of wind that knocked Link off his feet. With a laugh that was part triumph, part pure joy, he devoted himself to flight, wheeling and diving and pushing himself through the air as fast and as freely as possible. He could feel Medoh up above him, and wondered suddenly whether the Divine Beast resented being grounded on that peak for so long. Of the two of them, Medoh really could live its life always in the air, forever flying.

Finally, Revali extended his wings. The rush of wind in his ears quieted as he hovered high in the air, content, and looked down to find Link staring up at him in awe, his eyes shining in a much more satisfying response than his first.

An impulse struck Revali then, and unthinkingly he dove towards Link. Feeling as if he had done this a hundred times before, Revali flew in tight spirals around him, guiding the wind into one roaring column, and Link's eyes widened as his legs left the ground. Slowly, with Revali flying in ascending circles, the two lifted into the sky over Rito Village—just Revali and his Gale, and Link, rising alongside him.

Catching Link's eye, Revali pulled back, startled by the familiarity of it all, and as the winds lifting him up died away, Link fell. He had just time enough to let out a startled yell before he struck the wooden platform of Revali's Landing, and Revali flinched unwillingly.

"Link!" he called out, aghast at his own actions. Link said nothing, hunched in on himself against the landing, and with an agitated flutter of wings, Revali landed again beside him. "I—I don't know what came over me—"

Link was laughing too hard to speak, tears gathering at the corners of his eyes as he tried to sit up.

"It's been so long," he gasped, and one of those tears broke free, falling down his cheek. The look in his eyes set Revali's heart on fire, burning him to cinders. "It's been so long."


	7. Chapter 7

Press F to pay respects and all that but this story still isn't done. I almost considered posting a 10k word chapter, but then when it reached 12k words... it just made a lot more sense to split it. The good news is that the last chapter is almost done minus a lot of editing, and it's going up this Friday, so no more month long waits! Sooo yeah, thanks for your patience ;)

* * *

Although he clearly had his biases, Revali still thought that Medoh had been created… special.

Not that the other Divine Beasts weren't formidable pieces of machinery, of course. Vah Naboris was by far the most lethal of the four, a harsh beast crafted for a harsher land, and Vah Rudania came close behind it, scaling the cliffs of Death Mountain on fiery claws unaffected by the earth-melting heat. Gentler Vah Ruta came the closest to approaching his own in magnificence, with its impossible ability to pull water out of the air… but Vah Medoh was, put simply, a miracle. So many tons of ancient stone and metal should not have been able to fly for any length of time, much less indefinitely, yet not once in Revali's short term as its keeper had it ever needed to touch the ground.

Then again, who could say how Revali's Gale was achieved either, what forces carried the wind to him when he called? They were twin miracles, in their way: the Divine Beast Vah Medoh, and the Champion chosen to pilot it.

"You're looking a bit worse for wear," Revali murmured, circling the Divine Beast high in the air and trying with vain determination to ignore the way his heart fluttered frantically in his throat. Miracle or not, every sense in his body screamed desperately for escape as he approached the massive beast, and it took every scrap of willpower to push through that cacophony. "Don't tell me that a hundred years hit you as hard as it hit me?"

Medoh gave no response. Revali landed beside its enormous talons, his eyes jerking away from the ancient machine despite himself. The stone perch it had settled on offered an unparalleled view of Hyrule, stretching out further than Revali himself had ever seen or traveled, but even that felt old and dreary, a sight he would rather see up close than from this unbearably lofty distance. Instead, his attention turned to a blackened patch on the stone itself, incongruous on the otherwise unaltered ledge. Curious, Revali scratched with a talon at what seemed to be layer upon layer of ash, the most recent of which still looked surprisingly fresh… and bit back a gasp as flickers of firelit nights teased at his mind, tantalizing pieces of warmth that flared up only to vanish, as easily held as flame itself.

Backing up a few steps before catching himself, Revali eyed the scorched rock again with wary understanding. Often, Link had said. _How often?_ Whatever the answer, Mipha was right. Everything he'd wanted to know was here on this lonely slab of stone, waiting… but that wasn't why he had come.

Having made it this close, he still didn't think he could muster the will to actually enter the Divine Beast, but for his purposes he wouldn't have to. Instead, he took to the air once more, circling around Medoh's back to where the main control unit emerged like a flower about to bloom. Traces of the beast's former glory still lingered on the sweep of its wings, in sculpted columns jutting out to end abruptly in jagged edges, and in the stubborn dusting of green, more lichen now than grass, marred only by blackened lines of scorch that nearly stopped Revali's heart. Beak clenching, he narrowed his focus forcefully onto his intended goal, apologies spilling from him like a whispered mantra as he perched beside the soft glow of the control panel.

"I'm sorry," he said, the sound of it lost in the din. Maneuvering awkwardly around the steep angle, Revali ran his wing across the panel, which brightened at his touch. The old stone trembled beneath him, shifting forward with a screeching groan to slowly level out. "I'm so sorry. I should have come… I'm sorry." Memories or no memories, he thought he could have avoided Medoh almost indefinitely were it only up to him, but once he'd realized how his inaction had left Medoh trapped up here… once he started to imagine how he might feel himself, standing stationary on this lonely rock for months on end when he could have flown free…

Revali's body knew what to do, even if his mind felt trapped in numb, sinking horror. His fingers danced nimbly across the glowing panel in a motion he'd long since perfected, and Medoh's ancient fans finally whirred to life again, a dull crescendo rising as its talons slowly loosened from the jutting rock and the old machine lifted into the sky. The cry of relief it let out as it rose struck something deep within him, and he paused to breathe in deeply, his taut muscles finally unclenching now that they were in the air. Medoh deserved better, but it had him, and he would do right by it now if he could.

"I hear you have something for me?" he said, lifting his eyes briefly to gaze across the flat expanse of stone wings. Little remained of it now apart from a few stubborn tufts of grass, but the old writings described flowers and trees on Medoh's back, a tiny piece of cold paradise for any skilled enough to reach it. It was one more thing that set his Divine Beast apart, in Revali's mind—only Medoh had been so beautiful, even recreational in its design. He hoped that somebody would enjoy that beauty again someday, even if Revali himself could not. "Hold on to my memories for now. I'll be needing them soon."

With a flick of his finger, Medoh's path was set. Flapping his wings forcefully, Revali joined his Divine Beast in flight, hovering in the air to watch it drift in large, lazy circles below. Despite his earlier words, he considered taking that final step, seeking out the memories whose lack had plagued him since his return. Too much remained mysterious about himself to avoid it forever… but…

A more recent memory resurfaced, of blue eyes burning through him with a hope beyond understanding, and even in the frigid wind Revali felt himself flush as he turned away. He would be back for them eventually. Until then, maybe some mysteries would be most satisfying solved on his own.

For once, Revali could think of worse things than to wait.

The next morning found Link by Revali's fire again, humming his usual tune as he flipped a sizzling cut of fish over the pan. Revali blinked, flicking the daily dampness from his eyes and considering his Hylian visitor with bleary confusion that sharpened as the last remnants of sleep faded away.

"You're back," he said bluntly, and Link nodded.

"I am."

"I told you our debt was settled."

"I know."

The cool morning wind ruffled Link's unbound hair, tossing it across his face so Revali could only catch sight of him in glimpses, but his almost timid hesitance had vanished after the day before, replaced with a sort of quiet confidence. It was an admission, Revali realized, that this time Link had come because he wanted to… that maybe from the beginning, he had only come because he wanted to.

Revali made a decision.

"Where have you been sleeping at night?" he asked, and Link looked up from his cooking with a start. "The inn, I suppose? Or is it the stable?" It would be a fair distance to walk so early each morning, but the rates there might be cheaper.

Link did hesitate now, biting his lip as he prodded at the fish.

"Not the stable," he said at last, glancing up past Revali almost to the spot where Medoh had once stood. "The inn now, I guess."

Revali cocked an eyebrow.

"The nightly fare must add up over time," he persisted, but Link only shrugged, turning back to his cooking. From his awkward angle sitting above him, Revali couldn't see the light from the fire warming the soft planes of Link's cheeks and dancing across his eyes, though the remembered image hit him so vividly that he stopped to swallow before speaking again, his heart stuttering in a bewildering way. Thankfully—hopefully—none of it showed in his voice. "There's space here to hang a second hammock, you know."

Link's hands froze on the wooden utensils. Fish forgotten, he shook the hair out of his eyes, looking up with a piercing stare of his own that only quickened that stammering beat in Revali's chest.

"I might be around for a while," he pointed out softly, and Revali huffed.

"All the more reason to stay here, if you intend to keep intruding upon my mornings. I would offer the same to any Champion, of course." Heaving himself out of his hammock, Revali brushed at his feathers for an excuse to break that gaze. As if every other Champion would not have preferred the inn. "When you've overstayed your welcome, I'll let you know."

"If you're sure…" Link's sudden smile hit Revali with all the blunt force of a club to the ribs, making him wonder if he'd made a mistake in offering after all. "Yeah, I think I'd like that."

"Of course I'm sure," he said gruffly. "Would I have suggested it otherwise?"

If breakfast that morning was the tiniest bit burnt from Link's inattention, Revali didn't mention it, and when Link started to gather up the dishes as they finished Revali slapped his hands away, taking over the task himself. If Link noticed Revali fumbling with those dishes under his blue-eyed stare then he also didn't mention it, offering his quiet thanks which Revali waved away. They parted ways soon after, Revali to the Flight Range and Link to whatever occupied him during the day, and though he forced himself through the motions of training as usual, he couldn't keep his mind from skipping to later that evening when he would see Link again, a flush unrelated to exertion sweeping over him each time. Letting him stay had most definitely been a mistake. Too late to take it back now, though… or he told himself that, at least.

* * *

That first night brought little sleep for Revali—a malady that went utterly unshared by Link. His home's newest occupant had dropped off almost immediately, if his slow, even breathing was any indication, and Revali turned the steady sound of it over in his head, barely audible over the soft clack of windmills and crack of the fire but piercing nonetheless. It seemed somehow familiar, in that too familiar way, scratching insistently at the unseen corners of Revali's mind… or maybe he was just reading too much into it. Small chance that Link would have chosen to sleep on that frigid rock beside Medoh, however often he had come to visit, or however warm the fire.

Little by little, though, a new routine emerged, one that shifted slowly as their comfort with each other grew. Wherever Link went during the day—a subject he dodged adeptly each time it came up, always with a faint flush dusting his cheeks that twisted Revali's stomach at the implications—he never returned until after the evening meal, ascending the steps of Rito Village with a weary, frustrated expression that became a weary, relieved smile each time he caught sight of Revali and the fire. Sometimes they talked, clinging to small, safe topics like food or archery, or anything else that avoided Link's scattered store of old memories and the admission that they were still so few. Other evenings saw Link studying intently from one of the small, mysterious scrolls of paper he carried everywhere these days, humming under his breath and tapping out patterns on his thigh in the seclusion of his hammock while Revali scribbled away in his miraculously preserved diary, attempting to sort through his thoughts.

From the apologetic expression on Teba's face as he'd returned the book he had almost certainly read its contents, but Revali supposed he couldn't fault him for it. Who knew how many feathered fingers had flipped through the memoirs of their presumed dead Champion? He did wince internally each time he caught sight of the title page, penned with a flourish in his own loopy handwriting. _The Diary of Revali, the Rito Legend…_ words written by a younger, more naive version of himself who had possessed little concept of what a legend was, or the distance that title implied.

"Is that your diary?" Link asked on one of those quiet nights, and Revali looked up from the seat he'd taken near the fire to see Link peering down at him—or more specifically, his diary. Unconsciously, he moved a wing to cover it. "You write in that thing a lot."

"You read from those scrolls a lot," Revali retorted, and the lump that was Link shifted in its hammock. It occurred to him suddenly that Link had recognized the book, and he straightened with a scowl. " _You_ didn't read my diary, did you? If you tell me you read it—"

"I didn't read it," Link said, and Revali relaxed, mollified. In those earlier entries, he had… harped on Link. Embarrassingly so, in hindsight. Not that his more recent entries were much better—glancing down at the page, Revali found himself in mid-speculation over Link's whereabouts during the day with an indignant, almost jealous tone that he already regretted—but nobody would ever read those, if he could help it.

Dipping his feathered pen in the ink once more, Revali brought it hovering back over the page.

"Does it… help?" Link asked suddenly. "To write things down like that?" His voice had shifted, both higher and softer all at once, and Revali didn't need to ask for clarification. He understood the question all too well.

"It helps," Revali said, and heard Link shifting again.

"I actually _do_ remember seeing your gale, back… before. A hundred years ago, on the landing. I thought it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen."

"...Oh," Revali said, taken aback. Link rarely spoke of such things these days. "Well, of course it was. I told you, if there was one thing you remembered, it would be that."

"It was the only thing I remembered about you," Link agreed quietly. "Almost the only thing."

Another, more somber silence fell between them. Revali finished the sentence he was writing and stoppered the ink, fanning the page nearer the fire to encourage it to dry. If Link remembered that much, he had to remember Revali's taunting little… _display_ as well. He winced inwardly. Why was Link here if he could remember _that_?

"I'm sorry I didn't let you know then," Link said abruptly. "That I thought it was amazing. I don't think I used to share much of anything with… anyone."

"It was a long time ago," Revali muttered, snapping the book shut. Link had more than made up for it since then. Glancing down at the old diary though, suspicion filled him once more, and he glared up at Link in accusation. "You said you didn't read it."

"Yeah," Link said, shifting in his hammock again to drop his pack to the ground beneath him, his evening study done for the night. "Sorry about that, too."

Revali thought about throwing the diary at him, but did not. Then he considered rifling through those mysterious scrolls of his in a more fitting act of retribution, but again thought better of it. Instead, he gathered up his small pile of rupees the next morning and took it to the Slippery Falcon, emerging soon after with a greatly reduced stack of gems and a blank, bound book that he presented to Link later that evening.

"For you to write down your thoughts," Revali told him as he flipped slowly through the empty pages, running his fingers over their lightly roughened texture. "Whatever unfortunate state those may be in."

Link had gone so quiet after being presented with the gift that at first Revali wondered if he'd made a mistake somehow, but when he finally looked up, his face was beaming.

"Thank you," he said, and Revali turned his head uncomfortably at the clear sincerity, a now familiar flush building beneath his feathers. If it weren't for those feathers, Link would think him a perfect mess.

"It was nothing," he muttered, taking a deep breath. "Leave it here for a moment, though, would you? There's something else I want to show you."

Obediently, Link let himself be led to the small platform jutting out from Revali's home, clambering up the wall and accepting Revali's offered wing of assistance to make it up. In that brief moment of contact, he could feel Link's pulse hammering.

"Well?" Link asked, a bit breathlessly as they looked out over the darkened edge of Lake Totori and the moonlit Hebra Mountains. The view was not as expansive as that from Medoh's old perch, but impressive nonetheless. "What is it?"

"Stay right there," Revali said, positioning Link so he stood on the edge of the platform, facing that view. Moving to stand behind him, Revali gathered a gust of wind in his wings, and flapped once. With a yelp, Link went flying off.

Looking down over the edge where Link had fallen, Revali waited for the Rito insignia of his paraglider to show before retreating back inside, opening up his own diary with the smallest of smiles curving his beak. A short while later, when a disgruntled Link came trudging back up the stairs, he looked up.

" _Don't_ read my diary again," he said pointedly, and Link's mutinous expression faded to something more sheepish as he nodded. Grabbing his new journal from where he'd left it, Link retreated to a corner to begin writing furiously, the constant glances he gave Revali making it more than clear what had inspired his first entry. Eventually that tide of writing slowed, though, and despite Link's attempt at a wounded air, Revali caught him smiling to himself more than once. Hypocritical though it might be, when Link finally set his pen aside and snapped the small book shut, Revali realized that he would pay his tiny stock of rupees a hundred times over to know what had just been written about him.

Despite his burning curiosity, Revali did not push to find out where Link went each day. It was hardly his business, after all, even if Link's persistent blushes each time it came up had started to eat at his stomach in a confused, ugly sort of way. Revali had more worthy ways to occupy his mind than to speculate over what—or who—might be occupying Link's… though when he finally discovered the truth of it by accident late one afternoon, he couldn't bring himself to regret it, either.

His training at the Flight Range had recently taken on more of an advisory status, as fellow Rito archers had finally gained the nerve to practice alongside him, the most bold of them even asking his advice. Though he maintained it diligently, Revali's own practice had peaked without the challenge of his Great Eagle Bow, and even if he didn't possess quite the patience of his own late teacher, he had more than enough skill to make up for it. More often than not he obliged them, reasoning that any who were unwilling to sit through the rougher side of his tongue were unworthy of his knowledge anyway—and to his surprise, few were put off by his blunt method of training. Maybe it was only because he had the title of _legend_ backing his words, but most who approached him were spurred on by even his harshest corrections, to the point that Revali had started to notice marked improvement in those he assisted most often. It caused a strange sort of pride to well up in him each time he saw it—not in himself, exactly, but in seeing what others under his guidance had accomplished, like ripples spreading out beyond his own individual reach.

That feeling had its limits, though, which he discovered each time another Rito watched him call on his Gale with an expression beyond longing and he felt his defensive walls creep up. Revali wondered who would be the first to ask, and what he would say when they did. It had been a skill too painfully earned to want to part with easily, or at least without some recognition of the effort that had gone into forming it… but then, he understood too well the desire to fly.

Still, Revali had outshone every Rito warrior past and present for a reason. Even those who thought themselves the most dedicated inevitably left the Flight Range long before Revali would have called it a day, though on one particular afternoon as he watched the last of his fellow warriors fly off into the perfectly cloudless sky beyond, he impulsively decided to do the same. He had already put the Falcon Bow through its paces, and pushed the limits of his Gale in every direction he could think of. With hours left until dinner and even longer before Link's return, it occurred to him that it might be nice to track down Kass. He hadn't seen the strange bard outside of an evening meal in quite some time, and had missed listening to him play, especially with his children to accompany him. Hearing them all sing together always left Revali feeling content, if in a slightly wistful way.

To Revali's disappointment, Warbler's Nest was empty, though as he spread his wings to continue his search, a soft strain of… something on the breeze made him pause. It _might_ have been music, he supposed with his brow furrowed, and as he walked further down the path to investigate, he decided that at the very least it resembled an instrument. It could even have been an accordion, although it was hard to imagine Kass mistreating his instrument so. The _melody_ , if it could be called such, was halting and uncertain, barely recognizable as what Kass played so often but with every fifth note wrong. Vaguely, he recalled Kass's intention to take on an apprentice, and thought with some sympathy as he peered off the path into the trees towards the music's source that maybe the arrangement hadn't worked out for him as well as he'd hoped. This didn't sound like the student with a gifted ear for music that Kass had been describing when—

It was luck that Kass and his smaller Hylian pupil were facing away as Revali broke through the trees behind them, seated beside each other on a fallen log. Luck that their playing masked his sharp gasp of recognition, although a raised wing on Kass's part brought the cacophonous noise to a sudden, merciful halt.

"Not a bad attempt," he said with what Revali saw as a shameless disregard for accuracy, although the greater part of his focus was narrowed on the back of Link's head, hung forward in dejection over his awkwardly clutched instrument that was a smaller mirror of Kass's. This… was not even close to what Revali had expected. "I told you before we began that this would be a difficult melody to master. You should be proud of your progress so far—but you need to stop sprinting through the music. It is an end in itself, not simply the means of reaching a destination."

Link mumbled something that Revali couldn't quite catch, his quiet voice far less resonant than his teacher's, and Kass chuckled in response.

"Perhaps not sprinting, then, but if you are playing fast enough to make mistakes then you are playing it too fast. I don't care if it sounds like a funeral dirge for weeks if that's what it takes to get it right. Speed will come at the end."

"Can't we move on to the harp?" Link's voice rose suddenly in a plaintive tone that would have tempted Revali to knock him over the head had it been directed at him. "Maybe we should just… skip the accordion. I don't think I have the talent for it like you do."

"Do you think I was hatched with an accordion cradled in my wings?" Kass asked him, with more patience than Revali could imagine possessing. "It has taken me years to master my craft, and so you must trust those years of experience over your own two weeks when I say you are capable of learning. You do not improve on your weaknesses by avoiding them."

"But…" Link kicked at an acorn in the grass in front of him, and Revali leaned forward to catch his next sentence. "But the harp felt so _easy_ , and so did that… flute you had me play."

"The ocarina," Kass corrected him, nodding thoughtfully. "You did have a certain knack for those. The harp I can teach you, though the ocarina you will have to teach yourself." He gestured with feathery fingers towards his round, blunt beak. "That instrument was never designed for a Rito's use… but the accordion is as good a place to start as any. Better than most, if it will teach you how to learn as well. Surely you were not an expert in swordplay from the moment you picked up a sword?"

"I… don't know." Revali could barely hear him now. "From what I'm told, I think I might have been."

An awkward silence fell between them. Revali stood there uncomfortably, uncertain what to do. This was not a conversation he had meant to intrude on, but if he tried to leave now, he would be noticed. What he needed was for Link to continue his racket and cover Revali's retreat, but he didn't seem much inclined to do that at the moment.

"Perhaps that was a poor example," Kass said at last as Revali dithered. "Most skills don't come to us so effortlessly. There is no shame in being a beginner, Link. In fact," he added, placing a reassuring wing on Link's shoulder that dwarfed his small back, "you might be surprised by the support and encouragement you are robbing yourself of by hiding it from others."

Revali shrank back as Link turned to stare at Kass anxiously, though he remained unnoticed.

"You haven't told anyone, have you?" he asked. "About.. about all this?"

"I have not," Kass said, giving his shoulder a reassuring squeeze, and Link sagged with relief. "Nor will I without your permission, although you cannot expect it to remain hidden forever. No secret lasts long in Rito Village."

"I know," Link said, his voice muffled. "I'm sorry. I'm not—ashamed of this or anything, I promise, but—"

"Of course you are," Kass said, and Link jerked in surprise. "Why shouldn't you be? You have given up the life you were born for, something you were skilled at that some might even have called your duty, and decided instead to pursue a life you thought would make you happy. The least you must want is something to show for it all that proves you did not choose poorly." Link stared up at him, stunned, and Kass met his look with a wry smile. "I assume you envisioned a bard's life as that of an easy, carefree wanderer, traveling from place to place with smiles and songs flowing effortlessly from your hands and lips, leaving more smiles in your wake. Am I right?"

"Does it make me a terrible person if I say yes?" Link asked after a moment, and Kass laughed, a long, musical sound that Link joined in after a moment.

"I certainly hope not!" Kass chortled. "That was my expectation when I began. Unfortunately, only those who have put in years of study and practice are granted the gift of sounding effortless. It is like—" He paused, muttering, "No, the sword is never a good metaphor for you. Consider Revali, then. When he soars the sky on the breath of his Gale, it looks effortless, but such skill only came through countless hours of training and effort. Do you understand?"

"I do." Link surprisingly sounded heartened, and Revali realized he could likely learn a lot from Kass on the subject of inspiring others.

"You'll make it there eventually," Kass assured him. "I look forward to seeing you share this hard-earned gift with the world one day. Don't think I don't notice your feet itch each time your eyes wander towards the horizon."

"Yeah… but…" Link shrugged, a short jerk of his shoulder, though Revali was taken aback by how wistful he sounded. "I think I'd be here either way, for now. I mean…" His voice dipped too low to hear again.

"I know," Kass said gently, clapping his shoulder one last time before withdrawing. Revali had hoped that the end result of the little pep talk would be more music so he could make his escape unnoticed, but instead Kass motioned for him to put the accordion away. "Practice that tonight as slowly as I told you to, and tomorrow we'll look at it together. Now, let's end today with that goddess-given instrument that we each receive at birth: your voice. Have you been working on those breathing exercises I assigned you?"

"Yes…" Link drew out the word, leaning forward to fasten the straps of his instrument.

"Excellent! Stand up," Kass prompted, rising to his own feet. "You can't sing properly sitting down. Let me hear what you've been practicing."

Standing with apparent reluctance, Link took a deep breath, glancing self-consciously over his shoulder.

Without thinking, Revali took off, realizing too late that even if Link had somehow missed seeing him, his Gale must have given him away like a painted sign. He didn't look back, though, flying aimlessly over Lake Totori as the sun sank, Vah Medoh's shadow passing over him on its own circular path high above the water.

Link returned late to their fire that night, striding into Revali's home with a face as stiff as wood, his hair even more windswept than usual.

"Laugh, then," he demanded before Revali could say a word. "Might as well get it over with. I know you want to."

Something about the situation felt so unaccountably familiar that for a moment, all Revali could do was stare at him from his desk, setting his pen slowly aside.

"Do I?" he said at last. He might have, once, to see the knight chosen by the sword that seals the darkness so embarrassingly out of his depth. Odd that he hadn't thought of Link like that in a while, though. More recently, he had just been… Link. "What should I be laughing at?"

"I…" Link's harsh expression splintered with confusion, and he stepped back uncertainly. "So… w-were you not… listening, then?"

"To you play? Yes." Revali stoppered the ink with a grimace. "Absolutely atrocious, but I expect that Kass is right, and you'll improve over time. Still, I do not think I have the fortitude to ever be a music teacher."

"So…" Link stopped again, squinting at Revali with a frown as if trying to figure him out, and for the first time Revali did feel a touch of guilt. He hadn't meant to listen in, had not been able to see a way out of it, but if Link had been unwilling to trust him with such a simple thing to begin with, then that was likely his own doing.

"There's a saying among the Rito that our men are fine archers and our women better singers, but when I was still a fledgling, I wanted to sing," Revali said abruptly. "I used to spend hours at Warbler's Nest, practicing my songs."

"Why did you change your mind?" Link asked when Revali cut off, inching forward curiously, and Revali snorted.

"Because I was terrible," he said flatly. "I would say that I proved the old saying true, if Rito like Kass and some remarkable female archers had not already thoroughly disproved it. Looking back, I don't suppose that life would have suited me after all, but…" He cut off with a shrug and a grimace. Why had he decided to share that story? There was no end to it, no point.

"I guess you wouldn't be here now if it had worked out for you like you thought," Link said, and Revali sighed, closing his eyes briefly.

"No, I don't suppose I would." It wasn't as if he regretted it. That had been a fledgling's dream, one he'd almost forgotten about before meeting Kass had reminded him. Of course, if he'd had a teacher like Kass…

Hands on his braids made him stiffen, not quite breaking Link's hold on him as he craned his head back in surprise.

"What are you—"

"One of your braids is loose," Link said, and after a stunned moment of understanding, Revali settled back. His heart beat faster as Link's steady fingers worked their way through, portioning the fine feathers into sections and winding them all together. Friends could braid each other's feathers… or hair, as the case may be. It was fine. It wasn't as if Link had any feathers of his own that he might weave through—and why should Revali think of that, anyway?

"I've always meant to ask," Link said eventually, tying his efforts off with a bead. "Is there any special meaning to the green ribbons you braid into your feathers, or…?"

"I like the color green," Revali said shortly. Of course. Link wouldn't know the significance of any of this anyway.

"Me too," Link whispered, stepping back. His earlier defensiveness had vanished completely now, and Revali thought that maybe there had been a point to his rambling, embarrassing admission after all. "There. It's not perfect, but I think it will hold."

Raising an eyebrow at him, Revali brought his hand back to check, and found that Link was right. The braid was suitable enough for a Hylian's efforts, but fell utterly short of Revali's own standard of perfection.

He left it there anyway.

* * *

Sheet music. That was what those mysterious little scrolls had been, though Link never bothered to hide them anymore. At times, Revali felt that his roost was papered with the stuff, though all it ever took was a raised eyebrow and pointed word about paper being too precious to waste on the wind to remind Link to gather it all up again, flushing. Most nights still saw him bent over those pages in concentrated study, tapping out precise patterns against his thigh as if the keys and buttons of his accordion were mapped out in his mind, invisible to every eye but his own. Revali had to credit him for his persistence, especially considering that Link couldn't possibly have improved much since Revali had last heard him play… but those weren't his favorite nights.

Occasionally, Link swept all that music aside, withdrawing a rounded flute from his pocket that Revali could only assume was the ocarina and playing it until the late hour and open windows of Rito Village required that he stop. Link's fingers danced over the flute's tiny holes as if he'd carried it all his life, and the breathy, trilling music that emerged melded so well with the windy, creaking village that it was hard to believe the two did not belong together—that in fact, such music was beyond the ability of any Rito to produce.

Most of the time he began by picking through his music carefully, trying to replicate the melodies he'd been learning under Kass's instruction, but there were stranger moments when the songs flowed more freely, moments that for some reason raised the fine feathers on his neck when they happened. Link had the funniest look in his eyes when Revali asked about some of those songs, as if even he didn't know where he'd learned them, and though neither of them said it out loud, Revali supposed they must have welled up from that time they never discussed, outside of Link's conscious memory. He certainly appeared lost in his own mind whenever he played them.

On one such night, Link played a song that made Revali's entire body go suddenly tense.

"Again," he demanded urgently when a Link seemed about to stop. "Play that again." After a surprised moment of silence, Link obliged. Over and over he played that simple, falling melody with a trill at the end, so many times that they started to meld together. He must have played well past the point of courtesy, although nobody came to complain. Through it all Revali sat, fingers clenched into fists as he tried to understand why it affected him so. Music was only music… right?

He must have gone to sleep at some point, though he didn't remember it, because he woke up the next morning in his hammock with the sun in his eyes, blinking at the sudden brightness. Yawning, Revali brought a feather up to wipe the morning tears away and stopped short.

For the first time in months, they weren't there.


	8. Chapter 8

Heyyyyy! This chapter is absolutely too long—as in, the-size-of-two-chapters-too long—but informal tumblr poll said to post it as a mammoth finale, so... mammoth finale! There may be an eventual epilogue, but don't hold your breath for that or anything. In the meantime, thank you so much to everyone who read and commented and made writing this so awesome :)

Also, isn't it cool that Kass canonically composed each of the Champions' theme songs in the Champion's Ballad, so they technically exist in-universe? I mention this fact for no particular reason whatsoever.

* * *

"Here it is," Harth said early one evening, knocking against the wooden entryway of Teba and Saki's home to announce his presence. Revali looked up from the plate of food Saki had prepared and nearly dropped his fork, his pulse quickening at the sight of the large bow cradled in Harth's wing.

 _Finally._

"Is that your bow, Master Revali?" Tulin demanded, leaping to his feet in excitement as Revali climbed more slowly to his own. "Is that the _Great Eagle Bow_?"

"Tulin, please," Saki said, pulling him back towards her with a pained expression. Revali had often found it odd that Teba's wife so loathed the idea of her son becoming a warrior when she had married one herself, though the thought this time was fleeting as Harth approached.

"I'm sorry it took so long," he continued as Revali accepted the offered weapon, his throat unexpectedly tight. "It took me quite a few tries to get right, but I wanted it to be flawless." Harth nodded in short satisfaction. "This is just about as close as I can get."

Waving aside the apology, Revali ran his eyes down the bow's curve, tracing the decorative white lines with one finger. The freshly painted patterns differed slightly from his old one, a new design to match its new maker, but the same dark blue stained the wood. More importantly, the heft of it was the same: more powerful than a Falcon Bow, but not so heavy that it threw him off his flight—though of course, not every Rito had used it so easily.

He paused as his examination reached the worn metal frame, looking up, and Harth shrugged.

"That kind of metalwork isn't really my area of expertise," he explained. "There was nothing structurally wrong with the existing pieces, so I reused them. Anyway, I didn't think you'd mind if I kept a bit of the old in with the new."

"I don't," Revali agreed, his eyes settling on the faded blue cloth tied just below the bow's grip. He remembered clearly the day he had torn a strip from his scarf to add that final embellishment, though comparing the fabrics now, he found his scarf by far the more vibrant of the two—one inexplicably protected from the ravages of time, while the other was not.

Clearing his throat, he asked gruffly, "How much do I owe you?"

"How much do you have?" Harth asked skeptically, and Revali's beak tightened, his feathers ruffling at the implication. Money had never been a problem for him as one of Hyrule's Champions, and even before the crown's rupees had come pouring in he'd had archery competitions and their accompanying prize money to pad his wallet. Both sources of income might have dried up with the Calamity, but for this, he would figure out something—only before he could say as much, Harth had continued. "I won't accept payment for this. Restoring the Great Eagle Bow was as much a matter of Rito pride as anything else," he added, speaking over Revali's immediate attempts at refusal. "We worked too diligently to maintain it over the years to allow the knowledge of its making to rot away so easily. Would you deny us the right to preserve our history?"

Revali's protests fell away with a grunt. Had Harth said anything about meaning it as a gift for his _service_ , he would have denied it outright, and he suspected Harth knew it. There was certainly a smugness about his beak as Revali's shoulders finally slumped in defeat, unable to form a convincing argument in his own favor.

"You really have me figured out, don't you?" he muttered, checking the tautness of the bowstring with a smooth, absent gesture. Flawless, like Harth had claimed. "Well, I certainly wouldn't want to infringe on your right to preserve our… _history_."

"I've had more than my share of experience in dealing with stubborn Rito," Harth said dryly. "In fact, I'm not even convinced you're the worst of us. I know one person in particular who could give you a run for your money." His eyes flickered to Saki, who met his gaze resignedly.

"Are you going to go shoot it now?" A small voice interrupted them. Slipping out of his mother's grasp to look up at Revali, Tulin almost vibrated with uncontainable excitement. "Are you taking it to the Flight Range? Can I watch? Are you—ow, mom, let me go!" he protested as Saki grabbed him by the wing once more. "I was only asking! It isn't rude to ask! Dad never lets me play with him at the Flight Range anymore!"

"There's still some time before true dark if you wanted to try it out now," Harth commented as Saki dragged her son back into the roost, setting him to gathering dishes while he stared glumly back at them over his shoulder. "A quick trip to the Flight Range wouldn't take long."

His tone said he didn't care either way, though there was an odd intensity to his eyes that spoke otherwise. Well, he was probably anxious to know how his efforts had measured up—something Revali was keen to find out himself. Night would be on them soon, but he had designed the luminous targets at the Flight Range specifically to enable him to train past dark, and after so much time spent waiting, his feathers itched with the desire to give his new bow a thorough workout. Maybe…

Out of the corner of his eye, Revali saw a familiar Hylian figure coasting in on his Rito-crested paraglider to land on a platform below. Link must have finished earlier than expected tonight.

"Later," he said decisively, reaching around to hook the Great Eagle Bow onto his back. The almost forgotten weight of it felt good across his shoulders. "I'll try it out first thing in the morning. Saki, thank you again for the meal. Tell Teba I'm sorry I missed him."

With a nod to them both and a wave for Tulin, Revali turned to leave. In his eagerness to get home, he missed the brief look of disappointment Harth and Saki shared as he vanished down the stairs into the night.

* * *

Rito Village had always held a timeless quality in Revali's eyes, with each cool, sunny day the same as the one before. The seasons that touched other areas of Hyrule barely affected them in this part of Tabantha, and though snow came and went over the mountains nearby, rain over Lake Totori itself was a rarity. He supposed he could have measured time in the growing fringe of Link's hair, or in piles of molted feathers, or the tiny nicks of use that gathered slowly in the newly carved wood of his bow, but it still surprised him to receive a missive from the castle one day and realize exactly how much of it had passed. If the princess could be believed, and he assumed that she could, it had been almost six months from the day that he and the other Champions had returned to life. A little over half a year since Link defeated Ganon.

"Princess Zelda has invited the Champions to the castle for a celebration," Revali told Link over breakfast the morning he received the letter, flicking his eyes over it quickly to pierce through the flowery language with a snort. "Tomorrow evening, apparently. What did the messenger do, _crawl_ from Hyrule Castle?"

"Are you going to go?" Link asked after a moment. He'd gone unnaturally still at the news, staring at the letter in Revali's hand as if it might come to life and bite him, but at first Revali didn't think much of it.

"I don't see why not," he said, shrugging. Despite his griping, there was little in his life these days that couldn't easily be rescheduled, and he was surprisingly anxious to see the others again. However enthusiastically the village had welcomed him in, there were some experiences that only a fellow Champion would ever understand. "I'm sure that Kass will allow you a day off, if you ask him."

"I'm sure he would," Link mumbled. His leg had started to shake up and down, his plate left forgotten by his side as he rubbed a hand through his hair. Frowning, Revali was just about to ask what exactly had come over him when he jumped to his feet. "Luckily, that letter is for you, not me. Give everyone my best. Or… maybe just don't mention me at all."

"Wait," Revali demanded, startled, but Link was already gone. Gripping the offending letter, Revali raced out the doorway after him, grabbing him by the shoulder before he could make it to one of the landings. "This is as much for you as for me, and you know it. Why?"

"Because… I'm busy." Revali scoffed at that, and Link scowled. "Fine, I just don't feel like it. It isn't like you to care about these things."

"It _is_ like you, though," Revali said, and Link faltered. "Is there a reason you'd rather not see the others? I'm certain they would like to see you." Mipha would, of course, but he clamped his beak shut short of mentioning it, not certain he wanted to bring up that particular point.

"They don't," Link muttered. "They don't know me well enough to want to see me, and… I don't really know them now, either. Maybe it's better to just leave things like that."

"Easier, perhaps." Revali considered him narrowly, wondering what Link would say if he knew that most of the Champions remembered him better than he thought they did. Then again, telling him would mean exposing his own failure to do the same. "The princess," he said instead, and saw Link flinch. "She would like to see you, too."

"I… I know." His voice wavered. Maybe he had not shed his feelings of obligation towards her so easily after all. "It's at the castle, though?"

"Yes," Revali said, glancing at the letter again to be sure. "I can't think it's in good repair just yet, but perhaps the renovations have progressed far enough to make the space somewhat useable."

"Maybe." Link's voice shook almost imperceptibly. His whole body did, Revali realized with growing alarm, the color vanishing from his face in patches. Clenching his eyes shut, Link took a deep, unsteady breath, and another, his feeble efforts to hide his discomfort crumbling under Revali's scrutiny. "If you're going too, then maybe…"

Revali didn't understand it. Something about Link's reaction reminded him of the near paralyzing panic that overtook him each time he considered boarding Vah Medoh, but—

Oh.

"On second thought, you might as well stay here," Revali said. Link's eyes flew open, his pupils large and dark in their light blue setting.

"What?"

"This whole event is bound to be unbearably formal," he continued, holding the paper up with distaste. "One of us should be allowed to avoid all that ceremony, at least. I'm sure there will be plenty of opportunities to see the princess in the future. Come to think of it, she could easily visit here should the mood ever strike her."

Link blinked slowly, coming down from the fear that had so suddenly gripped him.

"...Thank you," he said. Revali hummed, shrugging it off, but Link pressed on. "No really, I—"

"I know," Revali said, tucking the hair behind Link's long ears fondly before turning away. Really, it resembled nothing so much as a bird's nest some days. "You're lucky to have me."

It wasn't until later that he realized what he'd done, staring down at his wings in surprise. Link's hair had an interesting texture, coarser than feathers but still soft despite its tangles… only somehow he thought he had already known that.

The ruins of Hyrule had not changed since Revali's last flight over them, their green overgrowth a verdant indication of recent rain. Maybe it was only because he'd had time to grow used to it, if one could truly become accustomed to such a calamity, but the sight of it depressed him less than it once had. It helped, too, when he reached the outskirts of Castle Town to find that it at least was greatly altered from the barely cleared piles of rubble he remembered. New homes and shops had gone up in his absence, their stately blue tile roofs placed atop modern, multicolored boxes in a strangely harmonious compromise between old and new, and with people walking the streets and the wooden frames of more buildings dotting the tiny town's edges, it finally had the feeling of growth about it. Castle Town might not yet be the bustling hub of commerce he remembered, but new life in all its forms adapting and thriving despite the destruction that tried to subdue it… that felt a lot like hope to him.

Hyrule Castle, on the other hand, looked very much the same as before: broken, and in ruins. Revali almost pulled up uncertainly before noticing a familiar female figure running out to greet him, waving from the castle's dilapidated gates.

"Revali!" Zelda called out as he approached, landing with a grateful shrug of his shoulders. Although the trip was not nearly so long flown in a straight line compared to the winding, indirect roads Hylians were forced to take, it was not inconsiderable, either. "I thought that was you flying in! Come with me, the others are already here waiting."

Revali followed her inside, distractedly exchanging the necessary greetings and pleasantries peppered with appropriate exclamations of awe over the town's progress. Despite her gracious response, the princess appeared equally out of sorts, peering behind them every so often as if she thought—or hoped—that someone else might be following. A blue and white flower twisted, forgotten, between her fingertips.

"I'm afraid the castle itself has not changed much since your last visit," Zelda said apologetically, no doubt noticing his dubious appraisal. "We have cleaned what we can, of course, and cleared away most of the rot, but it doesn't seem appropriate to expend so much effort on my own home when so many in town still lack any home at all. Perhaps when that's more settled, we'll make the necessary renovations. Of course," she added, a familiar spark of enthusiasm lighting her eyes, "it's also convenient to have a space apart from all the bustle of construction where research can proceed undisturbed. The improvements we have planned for Hyrule already—I can't even tell you how excited I am—"

It appeared that she _could_ tell him, launching into a rambling, eager account of how she and her team of Sheikah hoped to innovate everything from transportation to agriculture, though despite his best efforts to listen, Revali's attention wavered. Each eerily empty hallway they passed through pressed in on him with the heavy weight of a tomb until his feathers almost twitched with the desire to fly away, and Revali squared his shoulders against the feeling with a scowl. That was Link's fear speaking, not his own, or else his inborn preference for wide windows and open space. _He_ had never seen these corridors in the depths of their corruption, and the evil that had once inhabited it was no more than a swirling pink vortex in his memories, seen only from a distance at the base of Mount Lanayru and never up close. Even considering what he could not remember, the view from Vah Medoh couldn't possibly have afforded him more than the same.

Like a poisonous bubble from the depths of his mind, the single image floated up to him of a malicious yellow eye. He shuddered, and it vanished.

It was a relief to find the other Champions seated on a balcony outside of the oppressive castle walls, with food representative of each of Hyrule's races laid out in a simple banquet before them. They were not quite the only ones there, but nobody tried to stop them from secreting themselves away, joining together for their own private meal and conversation. The early evening air was pleasantly warm flowing down from nearby Death Mountain, quite unlike the constant cool breeze of Rito Village, and though Revali didn't mind it either way, he thought absently that Link would have liked that much, at least.

"I can hardly believe it's been six months," Urbosa remarked once they had all settled down, swirling a glass of Gerudo wine in thoughtful contemplation—her own contribution to the event. "Not that it's all that much time in the greater scheme of things." Eyes tightening, she took maybe a larger gulp than she'd intended, though she didn't seem to notice. "Barely a drop, really."

"Go easy on that stuff, princess," Daruk warned as Zelda poured herself a small glass, examining the drink with her typical analytical curiosity. "That'll wallop you if you're not used to it."

"I am one hundred and eighteen years old," she protested. "I think it's past time I was allowed to try some." Her nose wrinkled at her first small sip, though, and after setting it carefully back on the table, Revali didn't see her touch it again. "How has everyone been faring?"

Revali gave a noncommittal sound, picking over his fish in a vain attempt to remove the pebbles that flew from Daruk's meal beside him as he ate. The food was not bad otherwise—somebody among those Zelda had gathered must know how to cook—but he'd grown accustomed to better.

"Everyone is well at Zora's Domain," Mipha said more coherently. "Although we miss seeing you there, princess. Sidon has improved a great deal at piloting Vah Ruta since your last visit. I'm certain you'll be impressed with his progress."

Revali choked, thinking he had misheard.

"You're… passing on control of your Divine Beast?" Nobody else looked surprised at her affirming nod, and he wondered if they had spoken of it together before his arrival, or if he had once again neglected contact with his fellow Champions for too long.

"I've been considering doing the same with Naboris, actually," Urbosa murmured—a second shock, especially coming from her. "Perhaps in another few years. The new chief is young still, but strong. When the time comes, I believe she will be more than equal to the task." The smile she gave Zelda was distant, and full of memory. "More time to spend here with you, little bird. I have an old friend who I think would have wanted it that way."

"Ehh, I'm gonna stick with the ol' lizard a bit longer. It's not so bad in those beasts once you're used to it." Daruk might have meant it, though there was a tremor to his bravado that made Revali wonder. "You should see Yunobo, though! Got some spunk to him, that kid. Strong as a boulder, too, or he will be once he's full grown."

Revali grunted sourly. It was easy enough for them, when their successors had been made so clear. Who could he possibly ask when the time came? Medoh had been made for all the Rito, not only Revali himself, but he couldn't trust that bond to just anyone, either

"I've gotta say, though, I sure do miss seeing the little guy come around," Daruk added thoughtfully, tearing Revali's attention back. "So does Yunobo, come to think of it. Anyone know what Link's up to these days?"

From the stir that went through the group, Daruk wasn't the only one with Link's absence heavy on their mind. Revali glanced at Zelda, and found the princess's steady gaze already on him.

"I haven't seen him in months," Mipha said when nobody answered, staring pensively down at her food. "Neither has anyone I've spoken to. I know he is prone to traveling these days, but—" She paused. "If anything had… happened to him, somebody would have heard of it, right?"

Flinching, Revali took in a deep breath.

"Actually, Link has taken up residence near Rito Village," he admitted reluctantly, and saw four heads turn towards him with varying levels of surprise. He couldn't just leave them all worrying, whatever Link wanted. "I believe he's apprenticed himself to an artisan living nearby, though of course I don't know the details of their arrangement. I rarely ever see him myself." The princess's gaze turned doubtful, but he ignored it. There was no reason to divulge everything, either.

"You're saying that of all the places he might have chosen to settle down, he ended up in your backyard?" Urbosa asked, delight tugging the corners of her blue painted lips as Daruk laughed out loud. "How very… convenient."

"I suppose," Revali said cautiously, not quite understanding the overly meaningful look she shared with Daruk. Maybe she'd had too much to drink already.

"An artisan, you say?" To his relief, Zelda turned the conversation delicately aside, content for the moment to allow him his secrets. "That could mean a lot of things, none of which I ever pictured for Link."

"Nor I," Urbosa agreed, her smile fading. "Though I don't know why I should have expected differently, given the circumstances." She sighed, shifting to cross her legs. "I fear that my parting words to him when he came to return my shield some weeks back may have stung—unfairly, the more I think on it. If he returns one day, I think I will need to offer my apologies… or rather, if _she_ returns." That blue painted smirk was back. "Now that _was_ a sight worth seeing."

At least this time Daruk appeared as confused as he was, scratching the back of his head, though Revali thought that Zelda's light cough hid a grin.

"Is he happy?" Mipha asked, speaking up suddenly, and he frowned.

"How should I know if—" Revali stopped, realizing that somehow his old method of blustering indifference no longer fit. "Yes, I think he might be… happy."

Mipha's knowing look in return burned as uncomfortably as always, but eventually she settled back with a nod and a sigh.

"I suppose that's what matters, then," she said. "What else was all this for, otherwise? We may as well find our happiness wherever it can be found, even if it's not where we ever thought to find it."

A remarkably brave gesture, Revali thought, especially considering everything he knew or suspected about her and Link—except…

The princess leaned forward to surreptitiously take Mipha's hand, rubbing it reassuringly between her fingertips, and it struck Revali how many times he had seen that exact gesture between them over the past months. Now that he thought of it, how often had the princess visited Zora's Domain already for Mipha to _miss_ her presence? Revali had seen no trace of her in Rito Village, although he _had_ seen Mipha here every time he came to visit.

Urbosa caught Revali's eyes, rolling her own with a grin as if in confirmation of what he thought he'd seen. Revali found himself returning the expression, sipping from his wine and feeling unaccountably cheerful as a faint blush dusted Zelda's cheeks. Unexpected happiness, indeed.

It was as they were all preparing to leave that the princess finally pulled Revali aside, and that bubble of good cheer began to deflate.

"Take this," Zelda said, pressing something into Revali's hands that he stared down at in confusion. It looked like the Sheikah Slate, but glancing off to the side, he saw another, identical tablet in Urbosa's hands as she waited with the other Champions for the princess to take them home.

"I've told you that I prefer to fly," Revali started to say, but Zelda brushed aside his protests.

"That's not what this is for. The next time you see Link, whenever that is, can you to give this to him?" Her wry expression said she suspected that the two of them met more frequently than he claimed, though the effect lessened as she bit her lip. "It never sat right with me that I had to keep the Sheikah Slate after he'd grown so accustomed to using it. It didn't make sense to leave it with him, not when I needed it for research, but… Purah finally managed to replicate the device, and I wanted him to have this one. He still might find it useful, even if his life is not as perilous as it once was."

Raising an eyebrow, Revali activated the device. It did look just like the other from his admittedly limited experience.

"I'll be certain to pass this on to him, then," he said, moving to slip it in his belt, but Zelda's hand stopped him.

"The only real drawback is that it's still missing its map, see?" she said, touching the screen in demonstration to reveal a blank, black grid with a single yellow arrow at its center. "We've discovered that each individual slate must be linked to a tower or shrine manually in order to use it as a travel point—and of course, the guidance stones at the towers hold the data regarding each region's map. I'm certain he still remembers where they are, if completing the map is something that interests him."

"So you're saying he'd need to visit each one himself," Revali summarized, his stomach churning with something beyond Gerudo wine as he stared down at the blackened screen. "Can't you do it? It wouldn't take more than a day using the original Sheikah Slate for travel."

"I could," Zelda admitted, "and if he wants me to, I will. Time is hard to find these days, but a day of my time is certainly no more valuable than weeks of his. It's just… I can't pretend to know what's best for him, especially now, but I think it might be helpful if he revisited those places under happier circumstances. There was a time when I think Link's greatest joy came from exploring the wild lands of Hyrule. If he wanted an excuse to stretch his legs again, I thought I might as well offer it—but then, if he's really chosen to settle down now then maybe it's for the best." She spread her hands helplessly. "The choice is his."

Revali nodded, that churning dread climbing up towards his throat now. It was a ridiculous thing to worry him, he knew. Even if Link wanted to leave, the task could only take a few weeks, or maybe months at most… and why should it concern him if he did?

"If you're so concerned for his well-being, maybe reconsider your choice of venue for the anniversary party," he muttered, tucking the slate into his belt. It was tantamount to admitting how far he'd stretched the truth about Link, he knew, but she seemed to have figured that much already, and a part of him felt like being petty. Sure enough, her expression flickered only briefly over surprise, landing on regret.

"Still?" she asked, lowering her own voice, and Revali looked at her sharply. "I thought if I gave him some time… Link used to spend hours here trying to erase Ganon's touch from these walls, but no matter how hard we worked, I think for him it never left. He says so little about these things, though, it was hard to know for certain." Surprisingly, a small smile warmed her face. "If he told you that much, then that must mean you finally—"

Laughter from the others interrupted her, and the two of them turned to look. As they spoke, the waiting Champions had clustered around Urbosa with the Sheikah Slate, all chuckling together over something he couldn't see.

"Who took these pictures?" Mipha called out as they approached. "Was it Link?"

"Yes," Zelda said, looking over her shoulder with a smile and shake of her head. "I haven't had the heart to delete them yet, though he nearly filled up the device. He took so many pictures of horses, you have no idea…"

Leaning in for a better look, Revali felt a jolt of shock run through him. Link _had_ taken a lot of pictures of horses, and dogs, and sprawling landscapes both familiar and unfamiliar to Revali, though even the latter pricked strangely at his mind as if he should know them… but winding in and out of those images like a connecting thread was Link himself. Messy braids that Revali had heard of but never seen framed his face in cheesy grins and poses that brought laughter and groans from the others, though Revali himself could not join in. Dazed, he watched as image after grainy image flickered across the screen, Link's clothing and surroundings and companions changing with the passage of time while those braids remained the same. It looked familiar… and it looked _wrong_.

The Champion's laughing chatter faded to a muted buzz in his ears, their voices not nearly as loud as the thud of his own heart beating, and he realized with numb expectation that he was on the verge of discovering… _something_. The barrier between himself and his memories felt thinner than ever, but like thin steel it remained impenetrable despite his increasingly frantic attempts to pierce it through. A part of him wanted to reach into the slate itself, to take that smiling boy with the messy braids and… what? What would he change? He scowled in frustration as the answer evaded him still, even after all these months. What could possibly be so important, yet so unthinkable that he hadn't thought of it yet? _What?_

Then Urbosa flipped to the next image, and everything clicked into place.

"Hey," she protested as Revali's wing shot out, tearing the slate from her grip. "We were all looking at that, you know."

Revali didn't care. He didn't hear. Link's smiling face beamed up at him from out of the slate with his braids as neat as a Rito's now, the Hebra Mountains reflected perfectly in Lake Totori behind him—and in his braid…

"What is it?" Zelda asked, taking the slate from his suddenly numb fingers and scanning it for anything out of the ordinary. Eyes widening, she looked up at him again quickly—schooled in the ways of other cultures, of course. "Did you not… Revali, I thought that you must know."

Revali said nothing, staring down at the dark blue feathers of his hands, feathers that matched perfectly with the one in Link's braid right down to the ivory tip. No, he hadn't known. Looking up at the others, he realized bitterly that he might be the only Champion remaining who hadn't known.

* * *

The sun had set by the time Revali finally made it home to the twinkling lantern lights of Rito Village, avoiding the larger, more trafficked landings in favor of flying directly through his own window. Link was already there—of course he was—amusing himself on his small ocarina, although the wind of Revali's arrival cut the music off abruptly as he scrambled to catch the bits of sheet music that tried to flutter away.

"Thanks for that," he said in an annoyed sort of tone, though Revali could tell from his grin that he wasn't truly bothered. Gathering the paper into a messy pile, Link slipped out of his hammock with practiced ease to weigh it all down under the relative safety of his instruments. "So, how was it? As boring as you expected?"

Revali stared blankly at him, the hasty warnings from the others as he'd flown away— _Be kind! Be gentle! Don't be an idiot!—_ still ringing in his ears. The brief ease of their last parting seemed a lifetime away, and he felt like… 'a stumbletongued songbird' was the phrase that came to mind, though he couldn't for the life of him say why.

Link's small smile faded.

"What happened?" he asked warily, and Revali shook himself, finally finding his voice.

"Nothing happened. It was just… a long flight, is all. Two long flights, actually, and a busy day in between."

Link frowned, clearly not sure whether to believe him, but looking Revali up and down, his breath caught.

"Is that…?" he started to ask, pointing wide-eyed at something on Revali's belt. Following the gesture, Revali's momentary relief at the distraction pricked like a bubble.

"For you," he said shortly. "Take it."

Handing over the Sheikah Slate, Revali described the device's creation and shortcomings as succinctly as he could manage in his distracted state, watching all the while as Link flicked through the various displays with the same air of relief and respect that Revali had used handling his bow.

"So Purah finally managed to make one of these, huh?" he murmured when Revali had finished, a wrinkle crossing the bridge of his absurdly small Hylian nose in a distant smile. "I should've known she'd figure it out. Looks like it's all here… except the map, of course."

Link's finger jabbed against the screen, and Revali squawked unwillingly as a glowing blue bomb rune appeared in his hands, ethereal and dangerous.

"Not in my roost!" he hissed, stumbling back, but Link just laughed as another touch of the screen made it vanish.

"This from the guy who leaves bomb arrows lying around," he retorted, causing Revali to puff up in outrage.

"I do _not_ —!"

"I know, I know." Link laughed again, waving his arms in a calming gesture. "I'm sorry. You're always very careful with your bomb arrows."

Revali settled back, not quite mollified. It was hardly the same thing, anyway. He knew the making and handling of his bomb arrows inside and out, while Link's Sheikah tech would likely go off with a (literally) misplaced finger—but that wasn't the source of his turmoil, and he knew it.

Link had gone back to staring at the slate, his eyes a thousand miles away, and it struck Revali how much older he looked now than he had in all those pictures. He shaved almost every morning now, which he certainly hadn't done back then. He might have even grown an inch, although Revali thought with some satisfaction that he himself would always be the taller of the two. Had he been a Rito, Link would have shed the last of his pale fledgling feathers only a few years after Revali had, his adult plumage vivid and glossy with youth. Unfortunate that he should instead resemble a tiny-beaked Rito who had molted all his feathers at once, although once Revali could shake that sad image, Link was not without his charm. Tangles or not, the sun-lightened gold of his hair was stunning in its own right—and few Rito had ever had Link's deep blue eyes.

"You keep looking at me. Are you sure you're okay?"

Revali returned to himself with a jolt, realizing too late where his thoughts had gone while Link started meeting him stare for stare. _Stunning,_ really?

"Maybe not, if I truly have nothing more pleasant to look at," he blurted out, grateful once more for the twin shields of feathers and darkness as he immediately wished to pluck those words back out of the air. Stupid. Did he really have nothing more to fall back on than mindless insults? Odd as he was, though, Link was smiling again.

"Sorry I can't be prettier I guess," he said, quirking an eyebrow, and Revali shook his head vigorously.

"Don't worry about it," he muttered, determined to gain back control of his tongue, at least, if not his runaway thoughts. Still, his stomach clenched as he forced out his next question. "Are you going to go?"

Link frowned, having the utter gall to tilt his head in confusion.

"Go where?"

"The map," Revali snapped, tight dread making him waspish. "Are you going to complete the map?"

"What?" Link actually looked surprised, as if the possibility hadn't crossed his mind. "Of course not. I couldn't… I'm apprenticed to Kass. I can't just up and leave now whenever I like."

"Kass would give you the time off, I'm sure," Revali said, pacing now with aimless agitation. "It wouldn't take you all that long if you hurried. We—h-he'll still be here when you get back."

"Yeah, but…" Link blinked, and looked back down. "Yeah, I guess he might."

Revali's eyes narrowed. He could see it now, too—the wistful longing as Link finally allowed himself to consider the idea.

"It could be useful," he persisted, hating himself more with every word. "Being able to travel anywhere at the touch of a screen."

"We could go wherever we want and be back the next day," Link agreed, an excitement that Revali had only ever seen from him in pictures starting to light up his face. "I've always wanted to show somebody Satori Mountain. Or there's this lake in Akkala with these enormous flowers I think you'd like—" he cupped his hands in demonstration— "and of course you need to see Tarrey Town, and there's that place off the coast near Hateno where—" The flow of words stopped inexplicably, and he flushed, looking down. "That is… I don't think you've ever seen the ocean."

"I haven't," Revali said, though it wasn't really a question. Something poked at the back of his mind, but he ignored it fiercely. "It sounds as if you intend to leave, then. I suppose it will finally be quiet here at night… for a little while, at least."

"...For a little while." With that single sentence, Link's enthusiasm had dimmed. Watching Revali sideways, he panned across the map with a finger, stopping to point out a small, black square indecipherable from the rest. "This place, though… this is the first place I really remember. The Shrine of Resurrection." Dubiously, Revali nodded. It all looked the same to him, but Link seemed certain. "That entire plateau is cut off from the surrounding area now. The tower itself is almost unreachable to anyone who can't fly."

Revali met his questioning look, wishing he knew the question.

"You'll just have to content yourself with a partially completed map," he said at last. "It's not as if I can lend you my wings."

Link wilted.

"No, of course not," he muttered. "So… you think I should go?"

"I can't think of a reason not to." Even to his own ears, Revali sounded coolly detached. "Can you?"

Unfair though it was after he'd practically pushed Link to his conclusion, Revali still wished that he would come up with something, or do anything other than follow Revali's lead for once. Any indication to prove he had known that the feather in his hair meant something beyond mere fondness might have emboldened Revali to respond in kind… but instead Link only nodded, the fringe of his hair falling to hide his eyes.

"I'll talk to Kass in the morning, then."

Revali tossed sleeplessly in his hammock that night, as distracted by Link's presence as he'd been the very first night he moved in, though for once he was not the only one lying awake. The blue glow of the Sheikah Slate illuminated Link's face long after he would have normally nodded off, his hand slipping up to tuck the hair back behind his ears each time it fell out, until Revali started to wonder irritably how an empty tablet could possibly hold his attention for so long. No doubt he had missed having the thing, but what more could it have been to him other than a useful tool?

With a gust of wind, Link's hair pulled free of his ears once more. Scowling, Revali turned away, tucking his fingers beneath his wings.

Even having seen the feather in Link's hair, Revali still could not imagine how such a thing might have happened. That didn't stop him from trying, though, or from spinning scenarios in his mind when his memories remained frustratingly blank. The corniest of them he dismissed out of hand, born from the most vapid rumors ever to pass over a Rito fire—there had been no weeping declarations of undying love while they braided their feathers in together, for instance, and not only because one of them had no feathers to braid. Link was still himself, after all, unless he'd changed more than Revali knew: hesitant to take even the slightest step that he thought might drive Revali away. It had been months already since he and Revali had assumed the friendship that, while increasingly close and comfortable, was still a world away from the implications of a feather. How much longer did he intend to wait before taking things the next step further? Would Link ever take that final step unprompted, or would he prefer in the end to live life in stasis, enjoying what he had rather than risk shattering it all?

But then, the more sinisterly pessimistic part of Revali's mind whispered, he might not even know there was a final step to take. Link was no Rito, after all, and even dead with a hundred painful years behind him, Revali could only ever be Revali. Perhaps death had shifted his perspective enough to convince him to offer up a feather when he had never expected to in life, but had it given him the strength to put that action into words? Or had he slipped the feather in silently, a quiet declaration to himself of… _feelings_ that he had no intention of sharing out loud?

Groaning softly, Revali rubbed a hand over his eyes. Maybe it was love that made his heart twist at the thought of waking here alone without Link there to greet him—that _did_ go beyond the bounds of most friendships, come to think of it—but if anything, that only made things worse. There was a reason that feather had been so unthinkable, after all. Everything of value Revali had ever achieved had been done in isolation, and he'd never expected to want things any other way.

No, what he needed now was time. That was the decision he'd come to on the long flight back from Hyrule Castle—the _only_ decision he'd been able to reach, with his thoughts fluttering frantically like wounded birds. Time to decide what he wanted, to clear his mind without Link scattering it to the wind with every soft word and blue-eyed glance. Time maybe to remember…

Watching Medoh's shadow pass over the darkened water below, Revali wondered with a pang of self-loathing whether there was time enough in the world to convince him to face anything that truly frightened him.

Sighing, Link turned away, and his hammock went dark.

* * *

Revali's last, buried hope that Link's journey might be put off indefinitely was dashed when Kass enthusiastically agreed to the idea.

"He thinks it will be good for me to practice playing for other people," Link said, sorting through an enormous pack that he had hardly touched since moving in. Despite his sour mood, Revali couldn't help but be fascinated by Link's strange process of 'packing'. From enchanted jewelry to climbing gear, each item withdrawn from the bag was laid out carefully and scanned into the Sheikah Slate, where it subsequently dissolved into blue light, available for almost immediate retrieval as Link had already demonstrated to Revali's unwilling amazement. Some items remained on his person, though: the journal Revali had given him, for one, along with his accordion and ocarina. Something colorful and silky emerged from the pack, but before Revali could get a good look at it, Link had stuffed it, too, into his pocket, flushing fiercely. "I'm supposed to perform at every town and stable, and for every traveler who is willing to listen."

"I see," Revali said, mentally reminding himself to give Kass a _very_ cool look the next time they crossed paths. The princess should receive the same, come to think of it. A pity he could not glare at himself.

"I think I'll start with Tabantha Tower since it's closest, and circle around the Great Plateau. That will take me through the Hebra Mountains on my way back to Rito Village."

"Sounds reasonable."

A shiny black hat resembling a fish came out of the pack, and Link held it for a moment, shaking his head.

"I wonder if those Wizzrobes are still dancing around the Ridgeland Tower," he muttered, setting the hat down and storing it with the rest. "They probably are. I never did go back to deal with them."

"I suppose you'll find out."

"But Akkala will be easier this time, with the Guardians back on our side."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Link ran his hand over the soft, downy fabric of the snowquill armor that came out next, watching Revali out of the corner of his eye. He had done this a few times already, chewing on his lip before opening his mouth, only to close it again and move on, so it took Revali off guard when this time, Link spoke.

"Do I bother you when I play?" he asked, and Revali stirred in confusion.

"What?"

"You know…" Link raised his hands to his mouth, cupping an imaginary flute in demonstration, and Revali understood. "I don't have to do it here, if it bothers you. I can always practice somewhere else."

"No, it's… fine," Revali said, his voice softening despite himself. More than fine, it was the highlight of his day, but that sounded too corny to say, so he didn't. Link eyed him uncertainly before nodding.

"Just let me know."

The bulky snowquill coat and trousers disappeared in blue light, but Link held onto the winged comb, running it through his fingers before placing it experimentally behind his ear. Without the stability of a braid to keep it in place, it sagged, slipping immediately back onto the wooden floor with a soft ' _clink_ '.

"There's a shrine here in Rito Village, you know," he said abruptly. "I can't come here every night without losing some of my progress, but if it's time to make camp and I'm near a shrine… it doesn't have to be months before we see each other again."

Revali felt the tightness ease somewhat in his throat.

"Don't return on my account," he told Link irritably, turning up his beak. "I don't need you here with me at all times."

"No," Link agreed, slipping the winged earpiece into a pouch at his waist. "I know that."

His sword was the final thing to emerge from the pack, and Revali stared at the long black blade, realizing just how long it had been since Link last held a weapon of any sort. Little though he knew about swords, Revali suspected that it must be the finest blade available outside of the legendary sword Link had once carried, but Link examined it dubiously before shrugging into the leather harness, belting it firmly over his chest.

"I hope I'm not too out of practice," he said with a sigh, his hands lingering over the buckled strap a moment longer. Though he had nothing to say in response, Revali fervently agreed.

The eve of Link's departure found him predictably restless, the soft, lulling motion of his hammock not nearly enough to soothe the agitation in his mind, so this time he didn't even try to fight it. Slipping quietly to his feet, Revali hopped up onto his window's small platform about to launch himself into the night, only to pause, looking back. Link might have been asleep—his slate had gone dark, at the very least, and his chest rose in deep, even breaths—but…

"You should go see the other Champions while you're away," Revali said, and sure enough, Link's eyes opened, the dim outline of his face turning to regard Revali silently. "Daruk and Urbosa… and Mipha especially. They all remember you better than you know."

If Link asked the obvious question in return, Revali didn't hear it, and soon the wind rushing around his ears as he raced through the sky kept him from hearing anything else at all. He deserved to know, however it affected his opinion of Revali himself. Would Link blame him for not remembering once he'd spoken to the others, or assume that Revali didn't care enough to try? Although the thin sliver of a moon made it difficult to see where he was going, Medoh stood out against the night sky with perfect clarity, its thin blue lines of light vivid in the darkness.

Revali flew aimlessly for awhile, lost in the repetitive flap of wings, but it was no surprise when he inevitably ended up on a path through the air so familiar he could have flown it in his sleep. Perhaps a few hours spent with the simple physicality of fletching to cheek would settle his mind… but to his surprise, rounding the corner leading up to the Flight Range, Revali found it already occupied. The flickering light of a fire greeted his approach, warming the heart of the hut overlooking the deep, windy canyon, and it took only another moment to pick out the solitary white figure on the wooden landing, windswept and standing utterly still.

It was enough to make Revali pause, settling quietly onto the path below for a closer look. He hadn't realized until just that moment how infrequently he had seen Teba around as of late, though the more he thought about it, the more his many absences stood out in his mind. Head bowed, bent over one knee with his wings spread stiffly beside him, Teba could almost have been praying, except Revali knew that he wasn't. He could recall the countless hours he'd spent himself in similar concentration on that very landing, learning to feel out the currents of air and pull them all together until those tiny flurries had one day formed a breeze, and then a torrent, spiraling up around him in the skyward reaching gust that he had finally dubbed Revali's Gale.

Of course, none of that explained Teba's presence here now. Not unless…

Teba went tense, his fingers so stiff they almost bent backwards, and Revali felt the air leave his lungs. A breeze began to stir beyond that of the Flight Range's constant updraft, raising the thin feathers Teba wore in loose spikes behind him so that he looked even wilder than usual. The current of air tightened suddenly into a spiral as Teba's eyes snapped open, and with a grunt and a powerful flap he followed it up, his beak pointed in determination as if to pierce the sky… but almost as soon as it started, that rush of air wavered, the spiraling wind widening until it abruptly fell away. Teba's ascent slowed, and then reversed, and he was sent sprawling to the pier with a grunt that Revali knew from experience came more from injured pride than any actual pain. He had not risen far enough for that… not yet, at least.

"Ugh," Teba panted with a sharp shake of his head, pushing himself to his knees. "I lost it. _Again."_

His golden eyes caught sight of Revali staring at him from below and widened. Wheeling to his feet, Teba looked as if he would fly away, but instead he took a deep, steadying breath, pushing back the feathers that had flown into his face as Revali rose to stand beside him on his own, more controlled gust of wind.

"You see why I wear mine in braids," Revali said, surprising himself by how calm his voice sounded, though his head felt strangely tight. Maybe he just needed a few moments for it to sink in. "It will drive you crazy trying to keep it neat all the time otherwise."

"And have others compare the two of us more than they already will?" Teba muttered, glancing away with what on anyone else might have been a sullen frown. "Sorry, I… didn't want you to see that. Did Harth tell you to come here, or was it my wife?"

Remembering the night he had received his bow, Revali felt a few things click into place.

"Harth did," he said, and Teba's scowl deepened, his wild, charcoal-tipped feathers resembling a thunderhead. "That's not why I'm here now, though, and he certainly didn't mention the… details. Is this why you've been avoiding me?"

"I…" Teba's face was a picture of confliction. "I hadn't meant to give that impression."

"I see."

An uncomfortable, appraising silence fell between them as they surveyed each other, the wind whipping up around them.

"It's my right to learn this, as much as any Rito's," Teba said at last, his deep voice defensive. "You don't own the skies."

Revali surprised himself by laughing, clapping his fingers to his beak in surprise as Teba somehow managed to stiffen further, his tail fanning out rigidly behind him. The ability that had set Revali apart for so long was no longer his alone, so why did he feel relieved?

"I know," he said eventually when he could trust himself to speak, and Teba nodded.

"I don't want your help, either," he added warningly. "I can figure it out myself."

"Understandable," Revali said, and Teba paused, his eyes narrowing.

"Is it?"

"Of course it is." Revali tossed his braids with a proud jerk of his head. "I discovered how to do it by myself. Why shouldn't you be expected to do the same?"

Teba stared at him for another moment, then burst into rough laughter of his own.

"Harth will be disappointed to hear that his plan to have you talk some sense into me failed, then," he said, shaking his head. "He thinks I'm being too stubborn about this, and Saki…" His grin left as quickly as it had come, and he grimaced. "Saki."

Revali's unexpected levity faded, and he watched Teba somberly. He knew he had the habit of getting so wrapped up in his own affairs that he didn't always notice those of others, but he realized with a twinge of guilt that if he'd been paying any attention at all, he would have noticed Saki's growing resignation, as well. Paired with Teba's absence, it told an all too predictable story.

"I envy you sometimes," Teba said, and for just that moment Revali could see the familiar depths of exhaustion in his eyes that came from working night after night for something that felt impossible. "You get to push yourself as hard as you want, for as long as you want, and it doesn't hurt anyone. That's… not how it works for me."

It was true, Revali thought, though for once he derived no particular joy from the thought. Strange, considering that he'd made his carefully maintained distance from others almost a life philosophy—until Link came along, of course. A part of Revali had assumed that he must have tied that feather through Link's hair with some sense of surrender, grasping at love because it was the only option left to him, but the envy with which he noticed himself watching Teba's lavender-streaked braid toss against the wind told a different story. Would he have chosen to do the same, knowing how much life he still had left to live?

Revali wished he knew. The tightness in his head had turned to pain, a dull ache at the base of his skull, and he rubbed at it subconsciously.

"Can I ask you a question?" Teba said abruptly. "You might not remember it well enough to answer, but it's something that's been bothering me, and I wanted to know what you thought about it."

Frowning, Revali considered him.

"I'll answer as well as I can," he offered cautiously, and Teba nodded, clearing his throat.

"After Ganon was defeated and we thought you were gone for good, Link came and found me. Said that before you passed on, you'd left me some final words." He snorted. "I guess I believed that he'd spoken to you by then after hearing you call your attack on Ganon, though I still almost thought it was a bad joke. It wasn't until the day you fell from Vah Medoh that I really believed that you'd…" Looking Revali over, Teba shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I still don't know what Link told you about me."

He paused there as if he might receive an answer, but Revali only shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine," he muttered, the pain in his head increasing. These sleepless nights were doing terrible things to his health. "Only Link could tell you for sure."

"Right." Shaking himself, Teba fixed Revali with a piercing stare, which meant something coming from him. "The message you left was that you didn't think I'd ever match your accomplishments."

Revali winced despite himself. It sounded unfortunately like something he might say, though he couldn't imagine why he would have ever asked Link to go out of his way to say it. Before he could ask whether Teba expected an apology for something he didn't even remember saying, the other Rito had continued.

"You also said that you hoped I'd prove you wrong. Now, you never struck me as the kind of guy who likes being wrong about anything, or shown up by anyone. In fact, the more I've seen of you, the less sense any of it has made." He grinned suddenly, a flash of dark humor crossing his face. "I guess you probably didn't expect to be around to see it, which might have changed things, but it's not the kind of challenge I could just back down from either way. Still, I always did wonder… was it because I helped Link tame Medoh, or—"

"You wanted to kill Medoh."

If he'd had the presence of mind to notice, Revali might have been amused by Teba's guilty start at the accusation, but he was barely even aware that he had spoken. The pounding pain in his head felt prickly all of a sudden, like pins and needles jabbing through.

"Of course you would hear about that," Teba muttered, gravelly voice low. "It wasn't anything personal. The Divine Beast Vah Medoh just came to life out of nowhere and started shooting anything that flew near it. If it had been you protecting the village, you would have done the sa—Revali?"

Teba's voice echoed faintly as if he stood on the other edge of the canyon, though there were words that still jumped out in his mind. _Link. The village._ Link had never told him that about Teba—had never spoken much about Teba to him at all, in fact—but…

 _Vah Medoh towering above him, Rito Village out of reach beneath him, but before his eyes, pictures on a slate. Poignant nostalgia chokes the words from his throat, and so soft-spoken Link supplies his own, leading him through each picture of this place he will never return to, and these people he will never meet. The bowyer. The elder. Teba and Tulin, seated at the Flight Range,_ his _Flight Range._

 _Bitterness at the thought of this blue-eyed chick saddled with his lonely legacy, and he turns away, because Tulin deserves better. Revali made his own choices, doesn't regret them, but still this unknown child deserves better_ —

Revali did not notice his beak gaping open, wide eyes staring at a flood of images that he knew distantly were only in his head, though no less real despite that. He had been to the Flight Range almost every day since returning to life, and had come no closer to boarding Medoh tonight than ever before. What had changed? Was it seeing those pictures on the slate at the castle that had triggered this, or meeting Teba here at the Flight Range…

Or was it the shock of seeing his Gale used by somebody else? Because the memories did not end as they shared their regrets, Link's bitter admission fading into fuzz. Instead, pinned onto the end like an afterthought, as if every lost memory of this place had been locked in his mind together, he recalled a single scene.

It was deceptively simple at first glance, though the implications were staggering: just Link and Revali together, rising over the Flight Range on the winds of his Gale. Revali's eyes darted around him as he rose, ghostly green flames flickering across his wings, but though he had to crane his head to manage it, his blue and gold braid whipping up around him, Link's own eyes never left his face. Revali knew that he both wanted and did not want to be there, his nostalgic pining nowhere near satisfied by this distant imitation of life, but for Link he would bear it. If this was Link's gift then he would take it in and never let on that it hurt, because he loved him too much to…

"Master Revali!"

Gasping, Revali shivered uncontrollably. The cold night wind felt especially frigid after those brief, deadening moments of… death. He could feel his mind struggling to rearrange itself around what he'd seen, working desperately to draw connections and conclusions, but too much of it stretched the bounds of what he'd thought possible to fit neatly in anywhere. One fact stuck out in his mind, though, the most impossible of all.

"Are you okay?" Teba was still talking, he noticed dimly, an anxious mutter that barely allowed for a word edgewise. "I didn't mean to… you were just standing there, staring at nothing, and then you—"

"I gave Link my Gale?" Revali interrupted hoarsely, not quite a question despite the intonation, and the flow of words ceased as Teba stared at Revali in shock.

"You remember?" he asked in a rough whisper that the wind might have whipped away if he hadn't been standing so close—supporting him, Revali realized suddenly, like the very first day they met. It was a wonder if Teba still had any respect for him at all. "Did you remember anything else, or…"

"I gave Link my Gale," he repeated, more firmly this time, though he still stepped back on shaking legs. Now that he knew that much, he could remember… no. No, the rest was still blocked to him, though he could feel those pieces of memory scattered throughout his mind like sparkling gems hidden within a rock, awaiting a force strong enough to shake them free. More importantly, he could feel something else—something he realized he had felt for a long time, though he hadn't known for sure what words to put to it until now.

Teba still hovered nearby, concerned, which almost made him laugh. Never had concern been so utterly misplaced.

"Medoh will forgive you," Revali said, and then he _did_ laugh, if only from the satisfaction of seeing someone else to look so confused for a change. Blood and authority may have determined his fellow Champions' successors, but from the beginning, Revali had only ever been set apart by his effort—something another Rito had finally managed to match. If Medoh could forgive Revali for avoiding it for so long, it would likely be willing to overlook Teba's bomb arrows. "Saki and Tulin will forgive you, too, though I can tell you this much—if you master my Gale but lose them in the process, you won't have proven me wrong at all."

From Teba's expression, he thought he'd been handed another riddle, though to Revali the answer was finally clear. If he had only wished to see his skill returned to the Rito after his death, he would not have chosen Teba to carry that legacy—not with a family to weigh him down, as Revali might once have seen it. On the other hand, if some part of him had wanted to believe that great things could be achieved even by someone who still held to love… well then.

That was another matter entirely.

* * *

When Revali awoke the next morning, Link's hammock was empty.

Disbelieving, he stared at the limp square of woven fabric, then up at the sun sitting high in the sky. No doubt Link had wanted to get an early start on his travels, but had he really left without a word? Revali would have guessed that Link wasn't one for goodbyes, but this…

Then he caught sight of the four salmon rice balls sitting clustered together on his desk with a small, folded paper tucked beneath them, and his heart leapt. Sliding out of his hammock with clumsy urgency, Revali stumbled over to eagerly peruse its contents. It didn't take him long.

"For Revali," he read aloud, wondering in exasperation whether Link had expected somebody to come along and try to claim his meal. Over and over he read that messy scrawl, long after he'd comprehended its meaning, before letting the note fall with an abrupt laugh. Link never did say what he meant to say, did he? Tossing a rice ball in his mouth, Revali shrugged into his armor, wrapping his blue scarf around his neck with a sharp flourish. He still had time to catch up. One of them had to tie the first feather—proverbially speaking on Link's end, or literally in his own case—and at this rate, it wouldn't be Link.

A cough from behind made him whirl around hopefully, but it was only Amali, knocking lightly against his entryway to further announce her presence.

"Revali?" she said uncertainly, looking around his roost in confusion. "Why are you still here? Link left hours ago."

Revali didn't know whether to laugh or groan. So his next course of action had been so very obvious to everyone but himself, had it?

"I'm meeting up with him further down the road," he told her, and her expression cleared.

"I see. I suppose this is goodbye for now, then. My husband would wish you safe travels, I'm sure, but he's been out singing with our daughters all morning." Smiling, she shook her head. "We'll miss the two of you while you're gone, of course, but maybe a bit of a break will do everyone some good."

"I hope so," Revali said, mentally rescinding some of the ill will he'd felt towards Kass earlier. As an afterthought, he did the same for the princess, as well. "I thank you for your well wishes."

He had expected her to continue down the path, but instead Amali leaned against his doorway, looking him up and down thoughtfully.

"I married a wandering man myself, you know, and I always did worry when he was gone. Seeing the two of you travel together reminds me of our younger years."

Revali frowned. It seemed an odd thing to say when he and Link were not courting in any sense of the word—not yet, at least. Before he could decide how to respond, though, she had reached up with all the absent familiarity of a mother of five to smooth out a feather that had fallen loose.

"There," she said, satisfied. "Can't let you leave with such beautiful plumage in disarray… and such a distinct shade of blue," she added with a wink. "Come back to us safely, won't you?" Kass's light blue feather peeked at him from within her green braid, swaying as she tilted her head.

"I'll do my best," Revali promised resignedly, turning away—and stopping as every veiled, playful comment about his feathers crashed in on him all at once, followed by the mental image of Link wandering around the village as he certainly must have done, Revali's dark blue feather woven prominently through his hair for all to see. The last secret of Rito Village clicked into place, and he whirled around to stare at Amali's retreating back, beak agape, too stunned for words. Oh.

 _Oh._

In no time at all, Revali had packed his few belongings, setting his Great Eagle Bow and quiver firmly against his back as he finished off the last of the rice balls appreciatively—even traveler's food tasted better when cooked by Link. Casting one last, lingering look over his home, Revali nodded in satisfaction. That left just one piece of unfinished business to take care of, and then he could be on his way.

Almost as if it could sense his intentions, which Revali supposed it very well might, Medoh let out a familiar, piercing screech as he stepped out onto the landing that bore his name, causing several heads to whip towards him in alarm. To his own surprise, he felt a grin split his face.

"Don't tell me you thought I forgot about you," he called up without caring who heard, gathering his Gale to send him soaring into the sky. Pulling alongside one of Medoh's enormous, glowing blue eyes, he took a moment to admire his own daring. Even this close to the Divine Beast he felt none of his usual rising panic, as if he'd finally found something stronger to take its place. Hope had a way of diminishing fear, he supposed. "Do you mind if we put this off for just a bit longer? I wouldn't ask, only there's somebody I need to catch up to before he slips away. I'm sure we'll be back again before you know it."

Medoh said nothing in return, of course, though nothing really needed saying. It was as if they both knew it was no longer a matter of if they were reunited, but when… or maybe only Revali had ever doubted that to begin with. Either way, when he _did_ return to board Medoh, he would greet those old memories with new ones he'd formed on his own, and maybe even more than that.

"Watch over Rito Village while I'm away," he added, looking down at the quietly creaking village below, its windmills ever turning. Revali didn't know if he could have left it at all without knowing that it sat in such good hands—not that the Divine Beast could really act without its pilot despite Revali's affectations otherwise, but the village would be protected nonetheless. "I have somebody to introduce you to when I come back. He's as stubborn as I am, or so I hear, so I'm sure you'll be able to handle him just fine."

Flying contentedly along with Medoh for another few seconds, Revali eventually peeled away, wheeling around the sky a few times with a budding, almost giddy sense of freedom before diving down towards the bridges. Rito Village would always be his home, but it seemed a part of him had wanted this for a very, _very_ long time now.

Tempting as it was to follow Link's intended path to the south and hopefully find him all the sooner, Revali reluctantly decided against it, turning instead towards Rito Stable. If something had changed Link's mind and sent him in another direction, it would be better to discover that here than miles down the road. Someone at the stable could tell him for certain which way Link had gone, and whether he had taken a horse—a possibility that would make him faster, but also more likely to stick to the trail. Although Revali had only vague non-memories to go off of, something buried in his mind told him that when Link traveled, that wasn't always the case.

Then again, he thought with surprise that turned to anticipation as his ears caught the faint strains of music on the wind, tracking Link down might be even easier than he'd expected.

To Link's credit, it took a few measures this time for Revali to know for certain that it wasn't Kass performing, though he struggled for a moment to track the music to its source. Eventually his eyes picked out the hooded figure seated on a fallen log in a small patch of sunlight, his back to the woods with an accordion expanding and contracting comfortably in his hands. Although Revali had winced initially at the thought of Link inflicting every town and stable he passed through with a performance, he realized now that perhaps he should have trusted Kass to know his pupil's capabilities when he set him to the task. The wrong notes Link did let slip through were both less numerous and less offensive than Revali remembered, and he landed with as slight a breeze as he could manage to appreciate for a moment the rustic, somehow soaring melody. He couldn't remember Link ever playing this one around the roost at night, though it sounded well-practiced.

A handful of Hylian children rolled around playing nearby, barely glancing at Link or Revali—Rito would be nothing out of the ordinary this close to the village—but Link noticed none of it. The hood of an embroidered cloak obscured his face despite the relative warmth, and his attention seemed fixed on coaxing the music out of the instrument in his hands. Still, Revali sidled up slowly to one of the stablehands nearby, not in any hurry to be seen just yet.

"How long has he been here playing?" he asked in a low voice, gesturing towards Link. He likely could have spoken as loudly as he wanted to without being heard, but he still winced when the Hylian woman made no effort to match his tone, answering in a strong drawl.

"Who, Link?" She hummed a bit in thought, glancing up at the sun as she ran a brush along a horse's flank, and Revali eyed the beast warily. He'd never been one for horses, though all those pictures in Link's slate said that he probably had a different opinion. "A good few hours, I'd say. Rolled in right around when the last of our guests woke up. He's getting pretty good with that thing, even if he has been playing the same song over and—oh!" She shrugged as the song wound to its conclusion, and Link settled back to start doing up the accordion's clasps, signalling the music's end. "Guess he's done. If you wanted to talk to him, it looks like now's your chance."

Revali nodded absently, his eyes on Link. He didn't seem to expect any recognition for his performance, or was possibly unaware that he even had an audience, but the children playing nearby stopped to clap and cheer as a few of the listening travelers joined in politely, startling Link into embarrassed laughter as he scratched at the back of his head. A warm sort of pride welled up in Revali, and he wished he was holding the Sheikah Slate if only so he could attempt to capture the sight for later, though the moment passed quickly enough. The small crowd dispersed, and with the final clasp of his instrument secured, Link sighed, craning his neck to stare up the bridges leading to Rito Village. The hood of his cloak fell back to finally reveal his blue eyes and solemn expression, and Revali almost lost his nerve looking at him, the easy confidence he'd felt in the air draining away with each nervous beat of his heart. Then Link turned aside, shouldering his pack with a grunt, and just like that, Revali was out of time and excuses. Clearing his throat, he stepped forward—and stepped back again reflexively as Link whirled around, eyes widening as he saw who had startled him.

"You weren't supposed to hear that," he blurted out in greeting, and Revali raised an automatic eyebrow. It was true that he hadn't heard Link play any instrument other than his ocarina since that day near Warbler's Nest, but this time there hadn't been anything embarrassing about it.

"Why not? You sounded good."

If he had thought Link flushed at the applause before, at Revali's praise he came close to resembling a wildberry.

"I didn't—I mean, th-thank you, but—ah!" he groaned. "Kass wrote that song about you! I'm sure he wanted you to hear it from him first."

"Is that so?" Revali personally thought he preferred hearing it like this, though he wished now that he had known it was for him as he listened. Maybe he could convince to play it again for him sometime. "Well, I won't tell if you don't."

Biting his lip, Link only nodded, the color fading a bit from his cheeks.

"I thought I'd find you further along," Revali continued when Link seemed inclined to keep his silence, hoping he sounded more at ease than he felt. His pounding heart had yet to ease its pace. "If this is the speed you intend to travel at, you'll be making it back sometime next year."

"Kass wanted me to perform," Link mumbled, shrugging. "It was the whole reason he agreed to this in the first place."

"For so long?" Revali persisted, with a pointed glance at the sky. "For someone in such a hurry to leave this morning, you've wasted a lot of daylight."

Link shot him an irritated look spoiled slightly by guilt, though Revali thought it a valid line of questioning, if admittedly not the most useful for what he'd come here hoping to achieve. The problem was, now that he'd arrived, he didn't quite know how to get to what he wanted to say, and Link's sullen silence wasn't helping matters, either. Revali scratched at the ground nervously with a talon as the moment stretched, his dark suspicions from before resurfacing. If he had remembered things wrong… if he'd somehow misinterpreted this whole situation…

Except none of that really mattered anymore, because Revali knew how he felt now regardless of Link's initial intentions, and Link… he had been sitting here for hours, playing Revali's song. The thought gave him heart, and he cleared his throat again. Maybe it was best to just go for it?

"Do you have a—"

"I don't want to go, okay?" The words came out of Link in a rush as if he could hold them back no longer, and he glared at Revali in stiff challenge, daring him to say something scathing. "I knew if I saw you before I left, I wouldn't… you're right that it will be useful, and Kass is right that it will be good practice, and Zelda might even be right in thinking that it's something I need to do, but I just… don't want to. I know that I won't even gone for that long, and it's something I've missed while I've been here, but—nothing I ever found on the road has made me as happy as I've been the past few months here, with you." The admission hung in the air for only a second before panic widened Link's eyes and he backpedaled, hastily adding, "And with Kass. And the rest of the village, of course. It's probably the closest thing I have to a home in Hyrule now, so…" He cut off weakly, turning away. "I'm sorry. You probably just came to say goodbye, didn't you? Don't worry about all that, I just… what were you going to say?"

Revali stared at him, regretting every harsh word he'd uttered in recent days that Link had so clearly taken to heart.

"Do you have a comb?" he asked at last, unprepared for the reaction his question received. Link very nearly swayed on the spot, his once-red face turned as pale as a cloud.

"What?" he said hoarsely, even as his hand inched almost of its own accord into a leather pouch to withdraw the requested item. "Why?"

"Why do you think?" Revali retorted, though he thought the tremor in his own voice might have given him away. As he took the offered comb and their fingers brushed, he could feel Link shaking. "If we are to be seen traveling together, then at the very least you are going to look presentable."

If possible, Link looked even more faint.

"Are we?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Traveling together?"

"This will be easier if you sit down," Revali muttered, eyeing Link's trembling knees. "Can you find us a place to…?"

Link's legs deposited him limply onto the fallen log behind him. Not exactly what he'd had in mind, though a glance around them showed that Link's small audience had moved on with the music's end. Even the stablehands had found work they'd been putting off elsewhere, giving them a warm pocket of solitude.

Revali took a deep, steadying breath, and realized suddenly that he didn't need it. With a comb in his hands and Link sitting before him, this felt like the most natural thing in the world. Loosing the tie holding Link's hair back, Revali watched as it fell to his shoulders in waves

"If somebody at the castle told you… something," Link started to say, his fingers tapping against his thighs. "You don't need to feel obligated to—"

Revali rapped against his head with the comb.

"Be quiet and stay still," he said firmly, though with an irrepressible warmth that he couldn't help but notice sent shivers down Link's back. "You know me better than that.

Sizing up Link's head of blonde tangles, Revali dove in, starting from the ends to minimize snagging, and surprised himself with how easily he melted into the motions. It was as if he knew instinctively how much pressure to use, where he could pull through firmly and which areas required a more delicate touch, and almost despite himself, Link began to relax. His breathing slowed and softened as his eyelids fell, the sun-warmed blue of his eyes a mere sliver beneath them, and Revali couldn't resist running a feathery finger down his smooth Hylian cheek, though he disguised the movement quickly. Threading his fingers through Link's newly combed hair and watching the gold shimmer against the blue, he tied most of it neatly back again, leaving out the long pieces that framed his face.

"Now then," Revali began at last, and nearly jumped himself when Link jerked beneath him, hissing in annoyance. "I told you to stay still."

Link started to nod, then stopped with a rueful expression. His eyes had fallen all the way shut now, and Revali took advantage of the moment to find the perfect feather from his wing, its length and structure suited for its intended purpose. As he plucked it out, his mind barely registered the sting.

"Now then," he tried again, dividing the first braid into sections and winding them together one over the other in the complex Rito way. "If you really don't want to go, there's certainly no reason that you should. We have a village full of people if you must perform, and nearly everyone in Hyrule manages to travel where they want to without the aid of old Sheikah technology. However…" He paused, and _now_ his fingers chose to tremble as he produced the feather, pulling and tucking it through the braid to lie neatly against the golden hair. "If all that you want is company on your travels, I believe I can think of a way for us to help each other. An… equal exchange, of sorts."

Revali immediately wished he had rephrased that. It was a disgustingly analytical thing to say while offering someone up a feather… but for the first time, the hint of a smile touched Link's lips.

"How so?" he murmured, and Revali grunted, nearly dropping the beads he'd brought along to secure it.

"Well…" He'd had all morning to decide what to say now, so why hadn't he? "You know that I still do not… remember much. From before."

"That's fine," Link said immediately. "I understand. You don't need to try to—"

"Would you sit still and let me finish?" Revali snapped in exasperation. "And no touching!" he added, slapping Link's hand away as it reached towards the finished braid. "I said I don't remember much, but—I do remember a bit."

Sure enough, Link froze, abandoning his attempts to prod at the braid.

"...Oh?"

"A _bit_ ," Revali emphasized, starting on the final braid. Link's eyes stayed fixed on him as he worked, as much as they could, and Revali was grateful that he'd woven the feather in early. He might have fumbled the braid entirely under that hopeful gaze. "Only a bit, but… the others believe that the Divine Beasts keep our memories. If that's true, then retrieving mine would mean boarding Vah Medoh."

He hesitated, a part of him expecting Link to question his delay, or maybe cast blame for his inaction. Instead, Link's eyes filled with an awful understanding that sent Revali hurrying hastily on.

"Myself, I have a different theory, or maybe it's only my situation that's different. I believe I— _gave_ you something." Link twitched, and Revali nodded in satisfaction. "Something that carried me somehow away from Vah Medoh, though from what little I know, that should have been impossible."

"Your Gale," Link said softly, confirming what he already knew, then added, "Every Champion gave me a gift from their spirit that I could use to call on them when I needed it, but the others were mostly useful for fighting. Your Gale carried me… everywhere."

Now that was interesting. Revali thought he could imagine what those other gifts might have been, knowing what he knew about the Champions. Had the Divine Beasts restored those moments to them as well, or did they also have snippets of memory scattered across the land?

"It is the _everywhere_ that makes me curious," Revali said—a mild word for what he felt. "Although I doubt there is something to remember in each of the places you brought me, I still think that seeing them might unloose something." He shrugged, affixing the final bead and finally meeting Link's stare. It was finished. "More than that, if there are places that perhaps have greater significance than others, you are the only one of us who would know. I… would like to see those places."

When it became clear that Revali would not stop him, Link's hands shot up, running carefully along his newly done braids. As his fingers met feather, the motion halted, along with his breath.

Revali waited, forgetting to breathe himself. The feather must mean _something_ to Link, if his reaction was any indication. Did it mean what it meant to Revali, or…

"You mentioned an equal exchange," Link said, and Revali blinked. "If I take you along, what's in it for me?"

Brow creased uncertainly, Revali opened and closed his mouth. He knew Link well enough to recognize the light of mischief in his eyes, though to what end it burned, he couldn't say.

"W-well," he stammered, drawing his chest up and falling back on what he knew, "it's my understanding that there is a rather crucial tower that your unfortunately flightless Hylian self cannot reach. As you may have already heard, I more than any other Rito have elevated the art of flight to mastery, so your lack could certainly be alleviated with my gracious aid." He paused. "Are those terms… agreeable?"

"Agreeable," Link repeated with a solemn nod, and Revali's uncertainty grew. Then Link's lips writhed, and he burst into laughter so abruptly, he might have fallen over if he hadn't already been seated.

Feathers going stiff, Revali glared at him, taken aback and anxious and offended all at once.

"I'm afraid I must have missed the joke," he ground out. "If you could perhaps enlighten me—"

"Were you really just going to give me your feather and say nothing about it?" Link managed to choke out. " _Again?_ "

Revali was mortified to admit that his wings _fluttered_ with agitation, staring aghast at the still-laughing Hylian.

"So… so I didn't tell you?" he asked in a strained voice, his earlier fears almost confirmed, except… "You _do_ know, though. How did you…?"

"Teba," Link said, and Revali might have been indignant if he hadn't felt like such an idiot. Of course somebody would have mentioned it to Link eventually. A Hylian wearing a Rito's feather was too great an oddity for everyone to overlook. "It's not like the feather was hidden. I didn't know at first, but…" The shaking in his shoulders changed to something else, and Link bent over hurriedly, scrubbing at his eyes. "Ah, I don't believe it! I had a second chance to do this right, and I'm still going to cry."

All of Revali's disgruntled annoyance flew away at once, and he knelt in front of Link, gently attempting to pry his face up.

"If you _do_ know," he insisted, his heart fluttering somewhere in his throat now, "then you should know that it would be natural to expect… some sort of response. Something _other_ than laughter," he added dryly, and another wet laugh bubbled out of Link. "Perhaps the traditional Rito response is not possible, but—"

"How about this?" Link's eyes finally rose to meet Revali's with fierce, glistening joy before slipping shut as his lips pressed against the tip of Revali's beak.

Revali's eyebrows rose at the intimate gesture, though he waited for Link to pull back again to speak.

"I assume that was a Hylian custom?" he asked dubiously, and Link laughed again, shaking his head.

"Of course." Grasping Revali's beak, he brought it to his own nose to rub together gently, and Revali's breath caught. "How's this, then?"

"...Yes." Closing his own eyes, Revali returned the gesture, melting into his hands with a soft sigh. "Yes, that should do just fine."

The two of them sat quietly like that in their small patch of sunlight, birds and squirrels chittering quietly in the trees above as a soft breeze stirred the leaves, heavy with the scent of horses and sun-warmed pine. All of Revali's worries seemed to vanish beneath that sun, and he thought almost dreamily that if he had known before how this felt, his life might have taken a different trajectory entirely. Nothing he regretted, of course, just… something to notice.

Eventually, though, his awkward, crouched position forced him to stir.

"We really are losing daylight," he murmured unwillingly, but Link shook his head before he could stand, burying it against Revali's neck.

"It's not like there's any need to hurry now. Even if there was, I have the Rito's fastest flier to carry me."

Revali stiffened indignantly.

"I never said anything about—" Link claimed his beak beneath his lips again, running a gentle hand along it, and Revali paused. "We'll have to discuss it later."

Smiling against his beak, Link finally released him, and Revali stood with a groan, stretching each of his legs out in turn. Link's hand had returned to his feathered braid, running along its length as he watched with an absent smile, and Revali could already tell he would be forced to redo his work soon. The thought didn't exactly bother him, though.

"Where to first?" he asked at last, offering Link his wing, and Link stirred, coming back from his thoughts. "Tabantha Tower?"

"That was the original plan," Link agreed slowly, grasping Revali's hand and pulling himself to his feet. "Although… I know it's out of the way, but we _could_ start at the Great Plateau. It isn't somewhere that would bring back memories, but I'd still like to show you… that is, I haven't been there since…"

"Of course," Revali agreed immediately, and Link relaxed. "I would hardly be keeping my end of the bargain if I refused."

"That's right!" Link realized, his face splitting into a grin as he shifted his bulky accordion to settle against his back. "You _have_ to carry me up."

"Maybe," Revali allowed with a mischievous smile of his own. "Or maybe…"

He spun his finger in a circle to indicate spiraling wind, and if anything, Link's grin broadened.

"That would be fine, too," he agreed, turning to leave before stopping suddenly, his eyes lighting up. "Wait! Before we go…"

Pulling the Sheikah Slate from his belt, he bent over the device to flip quickly through screens. Before Revali could ask what he was doing, Link had grabbed him around the neck, pulling him in close with the slate extended in front of them.

"Smile!" Link said, staring at it with a familiar, cheesy grin of his own, and Revali instantly understood. There was a clicking sound, and Link released the grip on his neck, staring at the screen again with satisfaction. "There. Finally."

Revali stared alongside him, at a sudden loss for words. In all of the pictures he had ever seen taken by Link's hands, not once had he seen himself. No doubt capturing the visage of a ghost was beyond even the abilities of the ancient Sheikah… but here he was now alongside Link, the first image on a brand new slate. A _blank_ slate, ready to be filled with new pictures and new adventures; a second chance, like the princess had said.

"Are you ready to go?" Link asked, the light of the sun catching in his braid, and Revali nodded, wiping quickly at his eyes.

"I'm ready."

Never in his life had he been so ready for something new.


End file.
